#when i say that the lead up to the creation of this image

[khonshoe]

@comixender​ here’s the context, i hope you enjoy it as much as i enjoyed making it and terrorising my beloved mutuals with it

[tiredmamaissy]

Ralak te Sepwan ieyk’itan: Special Episode I

Ralak’s First Rut

An Illustrated Collaboration with @zestys-stuff

Masterlist ; Rut/Heat/Knotting Info

🔞 minors, do not interact 🔞

Hyperlinks are attached to specific paragraphs that when clicked on will lead you to its illustration by Ralak's creator @zestys-stuff.

Characters: Metkayina!Ralak (24)/(18) x Sully!Omaticaya!Reader (19)

Warnings: nsfw, smut, fluff, profanity, age gap, rut cycle, knot play, praise kink, breeding kink, p in v, mating/bonding, knotting, multiple cumshots, creampie, let me know if I forgot anything?

Word Count: ??

Requested: Yes || No

Author’s Note: Cheers to the first special episode :) This is literally a mindfuck so bare with me! 🤍🤍

Synopsis: after mating with ralak, you settle into your new home. During some quality time together, you pop a rather… interesting question.

<;- Previous Next ->

It’s barely been a week since you’ve properly moved into Ralak’s marui pod. It’s big and spacious, perfect for two – or more – na’vi. Comfortable and cosy, built by your mate’s two hands, with his future mate and family in mind. It’s beautiful, truly. But it needed a bit more... love. Something Ralak likes to say that you would provide with ease.

Taught from a young age, a man must provide and protect his mate and their family. Wise elders engrained the truth within his being since it came into consciousness – the truth that a woman wields the power of creation. The ability to create something out of nothing and make anything tenfold better.

A house into a home. Fresh game into dinner. Seed into life.

It’s from this point of his life, that he craved a mate to provide for, to create the dreamlife he yearned to live. To give everything he had to that na’vi and watch it flourish.

And he’s finally found you.

—

Five nimble fingers work away at the woven trinkets you plan to garnish the bent wooden frame of your marui with. Slender digits quicken as they tuck the coruscant shells into the twine, pulling it taut as you double knot it. It’s the one thing you taught him, the Omaticaya are known for their skilled weaving and sewing techniques - passed down by the ancestors themselves.  

He watches intently, brows twitching as he tries to follow your movements with his own thickset fingers. He’s always had a hard time with this sort of task, often resorting to the lengthy wooden needle and thinly twisted twine to fasten whatever you needed him to. He heaves a heavy sigh, letting his frustration get the best of him as he grabs the wooden needle.

Breaking his façade of indifference.

It’s silly really. You’re mated before Eywa herself, sitting together as you weave and see in your shared marui, and yet he still feels the need to express as little emotion as na’vi-ly possible. You look up to see his nose scrunch and lips pull together, the same face he made when you fell off your ilu for the tenth time. The memory has you giggling before you become aware of the sounds coming from your mouth.

It earns you a pair of beady eyes, drilling into your innermost being. It’s good to know that the teasing hasn’t stopped, even after marriage. Your giggle increases in bass, quickly turning into a chuckle. It’s infectious, spreading to his own lips to make them curl in the slightest way possible, just enough to make him look down at the way his fingers fiddle to thread the eye of the needle.

Blood rushes to his face, staining it a tinge of pink. His flushed cheeks and flustered appearance have the gears in your head grinding twice as hard, fabricating images of what he’d look like in his most primal state. All hot and heavy, chest heaving harshly from how hard he’s breathing. Is it this? Is this what he looks like when he’s in –

“Ma’ Lak.” The words slide off your tongue like nectar, sweet and thick with arousal. It urges him to look away from his task, gaze slowly trailing up your petite, dark blue body.

“…What was your first rut like?” You ask innocently.

Ralak cocks a brow, quickly dropping his head once more to hide his growing smirk. He happily puts down the needle, unfazed by your out-the-blue question and shuffles to his feet whilst offering his hand. Dainty fingers wrap around his wrist, holding on tightly as he pulls you to your feet and walks you over to the bed. He reaches behind him, gripping the base of his kuru to stroke its length and bring it over his shoulder.

“Why don’t I show you?” Ralak asks, exposing his dancing tendrils before your eyes.

Of course, the man of few words would prefer to show you rather than tell you. Not that you were complaining or anything. He’s choosing to let you in, to show you one of the most intimate moments of his life. A moment where he was most vulnerable.

You nod, quickly pulling your queue forth, revealing your dancing tendrils too. Hues of glowing lilac illuminate the space between you. Amber and azure orbs twinkle as they watch the tendrils find one another, intertwining as they come together with a quick tug. Your head flies back, pupils blowing until nothing but thin amber rings remain, breath hitching whilst your bodies synchronize entirely.

Your vision blurs until all you can see is white, and the high-pitched ringing noise in your ears drowns out the sounds of the waves crashing into the shore. Soon, you’re no longer in your marui, as the white fades out into various shades of grey. The ringing dissipates into a low, husky voice, reverberating in the background.

My tanhì. Are you there?

You can see beige and grey blobs, splitting into two and drifting apart. You can hear faint indistinguishable echoes, something like a cry, or a whine. Cool water splashes at your feet, making you rub your eyes to unblur your vision. You open your eyes, witnessing the blobs merge together and unblur into large-rocks, and pointed stalagmites.  

Our cave?

You hear the faint, breathy chuckle of your mate. Yes. Our cave. I was... frightened. Came here to cool down with a bath. See?

An invisible hand gently tugs at your chin, pulling your head to the left. You see young Ralak, short haired and bare skinned, leaning against the cave wall. His ears are tucked back, lying flat against his skull as a few strands of hair dangle in front of his face, beet-red with beads of sweat dripping down his temples. The droplets crash onto his bare chest which is heaving wildly from his laboured breathing.

His less sinewy body shudders, face contorting from pain and discomfort as his shaky hands glide down his stomach to find purchase on the band of his loincloth. Hooking his thumbs underneath the twine, he shimmies it down his thighs, revealing his naked pelvis. It’s strange seeing his unscarred, uncalloused skin, bare without charcoal inking.

Huffing and puffing, he stomps his feet to unplaster the sopping cloth stuck to his thighs. A gruff grunt of frustration vibrates in his throat, hands flying to the base of his tail to extricate himself from the constraints of his taut tewng [loincloth]. He’s struggling. Floundering around as if he wanted to step out his own skin.

Your heart sinks at the sight. You want to help him. Make the pain go away. You know it all too well. To feel out of control and confused, dazed, and flustered from the actual heat brewing in your core. But all you can do is watch him from a far as he squirms against the cave wall, panic-stricken eyes growing lidded and heavy.

I had a hard time understanding what was happening. Much like you.

Young Ralak finally unfetters the knot, loincloth unpeeling from his clammy skin. He sighs a breath of relief.  Finally free from his restraints, his painfully hard cock springs up, veiny and throbbing from his intense arousal. It’s almost red, mushroomy tip bulging and swollen with a thick, lengthy string of glossy precum leaking from his slit. It hangs freely in the air, swinging side to side as his cock jumps to the pulse of his heart. The swaying rope of slick finally catches along his length and begins to drip down to his – oh?

Is that your –

My knot. I was surprised to see it, too.

It’s huge. This is the first time that you’re seeing it up front. Sure, you’ve felt it before. Fuck, you even wanted to take it during your real first time – but you’ve never seen it like this.

“Tewti [whoa; wow].” Young Ralak mumbles, lidded eyes widening once they land on the sight of his knot emerging for the first time. It’s bulbous and veiny, pulsing madly as it continues to swell. A breathy moan parts his lips as a curious hand reaches for it, eager to find out how it feels. Slickened from his precum, his fingers glide over it easily, feeling the bump of each vein. His hips buck from his own touch, cock thrusting into nothingness.

Your thighs rub together at the sight. You’d never seen him this turned on before. Not even on the night of your iknimaya. And honestly, neither has he. He’s shocked to see himself so red and swollen, throbbing from how painfully hard he is. He stares at himself in awe, watching his hips stutter and squirming by themselves.

He’d never been inclined to touch himself in this way, not even in the early mornings when he was at his biggest. He would just wait for it to go down and if it was ever too overwhelming, he would come here for a quick bath. But the bath isn’t working today. It’s just too humid and hot for only water to cool down with.

Flustered, he gives into his impulses.

Webbed hand gripping his knot, he strokes upwards, cupping his pulsing tip as it oozes slick over the back of his hand. His head dips back, jaw clenched tightly as his hips stutter, palm of his hand now rubbing on the most tender part of his cockhead. He’s so sensitive – so innocent – like a single thrust of his hips would make his inflamed tip... erupt.

Oh, fuck. You shift your weight from one foot to the other - anything for a little friction.

His cock throbs madly, thick strings of his sticky seed spurting out his slit, an orgasm so powerful he can’t bite back the lengthy, pained whimper coming from his mouth. He looks down, feeling something warm on his stomach. Surprised, he let’s go of himself, staring at the thick bead of white liquid rolling between his abs.

“Oh – Oh Eywa.” He exhales wobbly, trembling hand hovering over his tender and raw cock. He’s so afraid to touch it again. But he wants to. He needs to. He just can’t help himself. All he wants to do is hump away at something – anything.

Anything to get rid of this feeling. The feeling of pure, unrefined frustration, engrained deep in his most inner being. As more time passes, he succumbs to his most primitive self, plunging under the thick, hazy trance of his rut. He grabs a hold of his aching cock, stroking it at the pace his stammering hips set for him. His head slumps back into the wall, chin pointing towards the cave’s roof as he lets loose needy, broken whines into the air.

His eyes squeeze shut, brows knotting together to focus on that gnawing feeling deep in his core. In a split second his whimpers morph into deep, guttural groans, white milky essence spilling from his tip, over his hand and onto his tensed stomach. His eyes pop open, mouth hanging agape as he sucks in a quick, shaky breath of air.

Tears well in his eyes, glossing them over with want and desperation. The blush on his cheeks spreads over the bridge of his nose, breath so hot you could practically see it. He pulls away his hand, exposing his cock, thumping madly as beads of cum roll down his shaft. It’s even harder now, so fucking hard that it strains, pulling his skin so taut that its outright painful. 

He fully slumps back against the wall, snapping his hips back to get rid of the intense stretching feeling. He almost caves in on himself, desperate for release. For relief. He begins panting – heavily. Trembling lungs making it hard to catch a full breath, he feels his head spin. Finally, the tears roll down his cheeks. Tears of torment.

The first tears you’ve ever seen fall from his face.

This is what you’ve been going through? All alone? For six years?

Yes. Ralak didn’t seem to be embarrassed by you seeing this at all. In fact, it feels as if he’s... enjoying it. Not necessarily enjoying watching himself suffer, but watching you squirm around trying to deny your own arousal.

Young Ralak slides down the rough wall, finding support on a small ledge near the bank of the lake. He swallows the saliva pooling in his cheeks, trembling hand slowly making its way back down to his aching cock all on its own. He grits his teeth as the pads of his fingers graze his chafed skin. He’s so rubbed out and raw that he whines at the sensation.

It’s like stones in your heart, clunking around as your breath quickens. You feel so helpless, so frustrated, unable to do anything to relieve your mate’s pain, albeit a memory. “Ralak.” You blurt out, surprised to hear your own voice in this hazy reverie.

What shocks you more is when he snaps his head towards you, acknowledging your presence with his delirious, inebriated eyes. You never even knew something like this was possible. You knew you could visit memories, just like you would when plugging in to the spirit tree. But to be involved and interact with them is hard to wrap your head around.

You test the waters a little more, and approach him cautiously, hands splayed out in front of you to show that you have no ill intentions. He watches you move towards him, irises flickering between his usual azure blue to a shade of mauve. You can tell he’s uncertain, just by the way he tries to retreat further into the wall with hand practically plastered to his cock.

“W-Who are y-you?” His voice is wobbly and hoarse.

Tanhì. You ignore Ralak’s warning echoing in your mind and continue moving toward his younger self.

“I am... your mate.” You say in a calming voice.

“M-mate?” He can barely get the word out when a wave of heat ripples through him, making his face red and screw with discomfort. “What’s – ngh, w-what’s happening to m-me?” He panics, bottom lip quivering.

“You’re in rut.” You say quietly, hand extending experimentally, your fingertips brush against his clammy thigh.

I can feel you, Ralak. So maybe I can help you.

His freckles blink from your touch, ears hugging his skull as closely as they can. You can hear the faint chitter of his teeth, jaw clenching and unclenching as he tries to put a stop to it. He’s panting so heavily – so quickly that soon he’s hyperventilating, about to lose it.

“Hey. Hey. Breathe. It’s alright. You’re okay.” You try to reassure him in a soothing voice, resting your hand gently on his thigh. “I – I can help you... if you want me to… I know how you’re feeling.”

Tahni. Ralaks stern voice booms in your head, but you continue to ignore him. You couldn’t take it anymore – watching him suffer in this way, even if it’s just a memory. The thought of him going through this alone for six years of his life makes your heart turn in on itself. Besides, you know that he can always pull you out of this daydream with a simple tug at your kurus.  

“It hurts... ssst – why does it, w-why?” He mewls breathily, hand reflexively stroking his length, knot to tip.

Your hand slides up his thigh and over his hand, stopping his eager movements. “I have something better. Something that will get rid of the pain.” You say breathily, nodding your head a bit. “B-But only if you want it.”

Young Ralak nods frantically, allowing you to guide his hands to your waist. His innocent, frightened eyes snap up to yours, making their final flicker to a beautiful mauve as they silently beg for reassurance.

“Don’t be scared. I’m right here. You’re going to be alright.” You croon at him, making your way between his legs as you untie the knot of your soddened loincloth.

You’re going to hurt yourself, y/n. Another warning.

Always so worried about me, and never yourself.

Once your loincloth drops to your knees the scent of your arousal fills the air, driving young Ralak into the thick of his rut. His pupils thin to slits and his fingertips sink into your waist, pulling you into him. Your hands slump into his chest, before sliding up to wrap around his neck for support as you mount your younger mate.

You’re squatting over him, knees pressing against either side of your breasts as you position his cock between your slickened folds. Greedy hands explore your body, gliding up and down your back before gripping your hips to move them up and down his length. He groans, closing his eyes to savour the feeling of something so soft and wet rubbing against him.

Putting pressure on your heels, you slide your slit up to his tip, shifting your hips downwards to position him at your entrance. His cock, desperate to sink itself into anything, goes into a thrusting frenzy once it feels your soft opening. He digs his nails into your skin as he forces you down onto him in one hard thrust. You hide your face in the crook of his neck in hopes to muffle the loud, pained groan falling from your lips.

You can feel every inch of him, just as you would if this were all real. Every vein. Every bump. Every throb. Once you look back at him, you’re met with frightened, innocent eyes, worried that he just hurt you. You smile wobbly, moving your hands to cup his jawbone. “I’m okay. Shh – it’s okay.”

“’m sorry.” He huffs, furrowed brows pinching even tighter as he thrusts into you, jamming his swollen cockhead into your cervix repeatedly. “s-so sorry.”

You rest your forehead against his, looking each other deep in the eyes as he ruts into you like an animal. His thrusts have no rhythm, hips stuttering at an unpredictable, broken pace. His noises are bestial and primal, whimpering and whining as he struggles to move properly.

“Oh, ma ‘Lak. Don’t b-be. jus’ want y-you to feel be-better.” Your voice bounces, hand reaching behind you to press down on his thigh to stop his movements all together. His hips come to a halt, with the occasional unintentional buck, hand caressing his thigh for a bit until he calms down fully.

“Easy, take it easy. Like this” Your hand slides up his thigh, slender fingers gripping the side of his hip to slowly pull him forward. His hips jerk forward on impulse, ramming his head back into your sore cervix. “Agh! A little – a little more gently.” You let out a sweet little cry, pushing his hips away from you.

His breath deepens so much that you can hear it – chest heaving so harshly his shoulders are visibly rising and falling. “S-sorry. Sorry.” He buries his hot face into your chest as he apologizes continually, trying to control the jerk of his hips. His arms wrap tightly around your waist to pull you in for a closer embrace.

Finally, he sinks into you slowly, completely bottoming out in your cunt until his knot kisses the softness of your slit. It’s so sensitive and neglected that he grimaces into your soft breasts, pulling away as he sucks in a quick breath of air with a ‘sss’. You look down to see his brows pinched, lips slightly parted and eyes screwed tightly shut.

He’s having such a hard time – struggling to breathe, struggling to control himself, struggling to be gentle. You can see the glister of the tears seeping from the corners of his eyes and oh – how that makes your heart throb. “Good boy. Doing such a good job, you know that?” You coo with trembling lungs, pulling his head back into you, resting his chin on your shoulder.

You hold him close, cradling him like a baby, cooing in his ear about how well he’s doing. “It’s okay. You’re okay. Just listen to your body.” Your voice quavers as you repeat his own signature words back to him. “Do what you need. Okay?”

He lets out a weak grunt, tightening his hold around you while he snaps his hips back. You can feel every vein and ridge against your gummy walls as he pulls out, and when he sinks himself back in you swear you can feel his swollen knot poking at your entrance. Again. And again. And again. And soon he quickens his broken pace, pounding into you so hard it feels like it may pop in at any second.

Heart slamming violently between your ribs, you tighten your grip around him as you prepare to be knotted for the first time. His lewd noises increase in volume and bass and soon he’s groaning gutturally as his frenzied thrusts become short and deep. So fucking deep that you can’t help but let out a pathetic little whimper when he pushes past the resistance in attempts to shove his fat knot inside you.

And that’s when you feel it.

“It’s happening. Haa – ah! Ha-ppening.” He groans suddenly, grinding even harder into you.

“Let it - haah- happen. Go on, there you go.” You pant, feeling his thick cock pulsate inside you, spurting ropes of his hot, sticky cum in your womb, filling you up until you feel heavy and oh-so-fucking full. It’s so much, it’s overflowing, excess seeping out to dribble down his knot. He’s allows a soft ‘ngh’ to fall from his lips with every pulse of his cock.

He continues to roll his hips into you, a little scared by his body’s impulsive, greedy movements. But he can’t help it, the way his body is screaming to shove this growing bulge inside your tight, little hole. He’s whimpering, at war with himself as he tries his best not to knot you.

Tanhì!

“Don’t fight it. Do it!” You cry out a high-pitched moan, grinding into immense pressure between your legs. You can feel it work its way inside you, stretching you out so much that it burns. But you know this will make him feel better – make the pain go away. “Harder. Push h-harder.” You quiet down to an encouraging, shaky whisper. He’s pushing up into you and shoving you down by your hips at the same time, clenching his jaw from the way you’re pinching him.

Pop.

“Ngh!” It slips in with an audible squelch, burning sensation between your legs growing even hotter. And hotter. And hotter. And oh – fuck. It’s so hot it feels like a ring of fire surrounding his pulsating knot. It hurts – but it hurts so good. So good that your pussy walls flutter around him uncontrollably. “F-fuck!” You cry out, quickly coming to the realization that you’re cumming from the way his knot is burying itself inside you.

He holds onto you tightly as he continues to move inside you, tugging at you as you try to come down from your unexpected high. “W-wait – Ralak!” You whimper loudly, trying to follow his erratic movements. He’s whining from the overstimulation and the way you’re pinching around him; eyes flying wide open to reveal pure panic and guilt when he quickly understands that he’s hurting you.

Suddenly, your vision goes white as the ear-splitting ring pierces your eardrums and in a matter of seconds, you’re back in your shared marui. You open your eyes with an audible gasp to see Ralak peering up at you through furrowed brows. His gaze is almost predatory – piercing, and unflinching. His slumped shoulders rise and fall from how heavily he’s breathing, darkened, almost purple-y mauve irises flicking down to his taut loincloth – soaked with his thick cum.

“Oh, shit.” You breathe, unaware that he was feeling everything, too.

“Only I knot you.” Ralak growls.

A giggle bubbles up your throat, “Really Lak?Jealous? Of yourself?”

He grunts, displeased with your behaviour. “Do not taunt me, Tanhì.”

——

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

IOTA Reviews: Conformation and Re-Creation (The Final Day)

Well, here we are. The final two episodes of Season 5. It's been a long and complicated journey, so let me get you up to speed on what exactly happened this season, episode by episode.

Evolution: Ladybug and Cat Noir chase Monarch through time, and it's not nearly as cool as it sounds.

Multiplication: Adrien likes Marinette now because the plot says so.

Destruction: Cat Noir accidentally Cataclysms Monarch, and it somehow leads to the most guilt he feels using his Cataclysm on anyone.

Jubilation: Ever want to have the image of Ladybug and Cat Noir being teen parents burned into your brain? No? Too bad!

Illusion: Nino establishes himself as a leader so terrible, Zapp Brannigan would call him an idiot.

Determination: Marinette likes Cat Noir now because the plot says so.

Passion: Nathalie shows she'd rather silently judge Gabriel for his actions over actually doing anything to stop him.

Reunion: Marinette talks with the spirit of Joan of Arc, and it's not nearly as cool as it sounds.

Elation: Someone tries to murder Marinette over ice cream for the third time in four seasons.

Transmission: Yeah, I totally believe you're replacing Marinette and Adrien with two new main characters in the middle of your fifth season.

Deflagration: Because of Tikki and Plagg's terrible decisions, Monarch comes the closest he's ever come to winning.

Perfection: Kagami becomes a giant cloud Akuma, symbolizing her also becoming a total airhead for the rest of the season.

Migration: The writers realize they have no idea what to do with Luka, so they kick him out of the show entirely.

Derision: “How many things do you want to retcon to make this story work?” “Yes.”

Intuition: Gabriel continues to prove how pathetic of a villain he is, even when he has unlimited chances.

Protection: Even after being tricked three times by her, Kagami still thinks Lila is a trustworthy person.

Adoration: “We have Lumity at home”.

Emotion: The episode where Felix essentially commits genocide is somehow also the one where the writers want the audience to start viewing him in a sympathetic light.

Pretension: Felix likes Kagami because the plot says so, and vice versa.

Revelation: Lila only gets as far as she does thanks to Marinette becoming as dumb as the rest of the class.

Confrontation: Our heroes expose the villain's evil plans by spying on them through a bathroom peephole.

Collusion: Remember kids, violent revolutions against politicians are never the answer.

Revolution: Remember kids, violent revolutions against politicians are always the answer.

Representation: To the surprise of literally no one, Felix is revealed to be a Sentimonster, yet the writers still won't tell us that Adrien and Kagami are the same.

Now that you're all caught up, let's get into the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fifth season: Conformation and Re-Creation

After a brief news report showing everyone enjoying the first day of Summer vacation, Gabriel and Tomoe finally decide to launch “Perfect Alliance”. What does this plan entail? For starters, Gabriel transforms into Monarch, detransforms to akumatize himself into Nightormentor again, gives himself the powers of the Mouse, Rooster and Horse Miraculous in order to clone himself and fly around the globe to spread his nightmare dust. Because just akumatizing Sandboy again and giving him the Mouse Miraculous' Multitude was just too complex of a plan.

Marinette is the first to be affected by the dust, we get a dream where she dresses up as a knight to save Adrien from a cheap recolor of Fang in his dragon form.

This is a weird episode of Super Why.

Marinette defeats the dragon, who reverts back to Gabriel, who is accidentally killed by the fight, causing Adrien to cry since Adrien was watching the whole thing. Marinette wakes up, thankful that it was all just a bad dream sequence. She decides she needs to find out just where Gabriel sent Adrien to make sure he's safe, something that won't make sense as I'll explain later on. As she tries to leave, she keeps experiencing sudden headaches, as do her parents and Alya.

Meanwhile, Adrien is still left reeling from the effects of the nightmare dust from last episode, to the point where he has a panic attack, demanding to be let out. Gabriel, seemingly aware of this, decides to give Adrien the “antidote”, an Alliance ring with an app called “Perfect Alliance”. So once again, despite claiming to do this for his son, Gabriel willingly chose to make his life worse as part of his evil plans. Remember this, it'll be important later on.

Plagg suggests Adrien transform into Cat Noir, but Adrien reminds him that there are cameras everywhere, so he can't risk it. Plagg disables the cameras, but Adrien still says no. Whether he was aware that the robot who was sent to give him the Alliance ring with the new app had a hidden camera is irrevelant, because Adrien gives a different reason why he can't transform.

Adrien: I'm not in my right mind. I'm too angry; at myself for falling short of Marinette's love, at my father for sending me here in London, at this stupid app and these rings that use my image... it makes me sick! This nightmare is giving me the horrible feeling that, if I transform, I'll get akumatized and destroy everything with my Cataclysm. Marinette, Ladybug...

Plagg: Surely Ladybug can help you.

Adrien: If I ask her for help, I'd have to give her information that would jeopardize my secret identity... and I can't.

Okay, let me make one thing clear. The reason that Adrien can't risk exposing his identity thanks to all the cameras is a good one, and the fact that he doesn't want to risk exposing his identity to Ladybug in particular is a good sign of character development, but the problem I have is the fact that the writers decided to bench Adrien in the first place.

Yes, you heard that right. In arguably the most boneheaded decision in the show's history since... well, a lot of things this season, Adrien, despite being the son of the main villain, isn't going to get involved in the final battle at all.

There are multiple reasons why Adrien staying put in this room is a terrible idea, and most of them involve the fact that almost none of the in-universe explanations for this hold up.

Adrien is being heavily monitored by cameras? We just saw Plagg was able to disable them with ease.

Adrien can't ask Ladybug for help without jeopardizing his secret identity? The fact that he's at risk of being akumatized as is, with or without the Cat Miraculous, will still blow his cover due to Monarch's mind reading abilities (which we saw when Monarch almost learned Luka's secret in “Migration”), so he really has nothing to lose here.

Adrien isn't in the right state of mind thanks to the nightmare dust? Literally every other character who takes part in the final battle is able to either find a way to fight off the nightmares or keeps going while still under the influence of the nightmare dust.

Adrien's ultimate plan to take off his Miraculous and let Plagg choose a new temporary holder? We saw this exact same scenario play out earlier this season in “The Kwamis' Choice”, and things went horribly, horribly wrong.

Do you see why this makes no sense? Even though the show loves to boast about how valuable of an asset Cat Noir is, the writers are bending over backwards to justify keeping Adrien as far away from the final battle as possible, because they know damn well that they'd have to address how terrible his father really is with the reveal.

And the best part? This is basically the last we'll see of Adrien in this episode. Do you want to know how many lines he gets in the next episode, AKA, the final episode of the season? Three. AND THEY'RE ALL AFTER THE FINAL BATTLE.

But we're not done talking about this stupid idea yet, because unlike the other episodes, I have something else to rant about: The writers' commentary. In November of 2023, around four months after the finale premiered, the writers of this show recorded their own audio commentary, and while I don't have the exact translation (if anyone reading this has a translation of this, I would really appreciate the effort), I have seen one post summarizing the things they said, and all I can say is DEAR. LORD. This is not just shooting yourself in the foot. This is shooting yourself in the foot multiple times with Judas Bullets.

Like, it's amazing. We've always speculated just what goes through the writers' heads that makes them come up with some of the strangest ideas to take the story, and now, we have a first-hand account of why these episodes turned out the way they did. For this one moment, they gave about three explanations as to why Adrien was benched for the finale.

Let's start with the first one, Cat Blanc. I know what you're thinking, wasn't Cat Blanc an Akuma from an alternate timeline that our Adrien shouldn't know about? Not according to Melenie Duval. While Adrien's fear of being akumatized is reasonable, Duval claims that he could become Cat Blanc... which makes no sense as A) Adrien's nightmare was of an entirely different Akuma, and B) The aforementioned nightmare dust never informed Adrien of the alternate timeline where Cat Blanc destroyed the world, it just provided him with a nightmare about a similar scenario.

And in case you weren't questioning this woman's judgment, Duval has done on the record to state that her favorite episode of the entire show is “Derision”.

Our next reasoning is especially stupid, as the rest of the writing team reveal that they had planned to keep Adrien out of the final battle as far back as 2014, nine years before the finished product premiered. Why would they do that? Because they wanted Ladybug to unify with the Cat Miraculous, of course! Sure, you could have just saved this unification for a special or something like that so you don't bench one of your main characters, or you could have at least had Adrien willingly give his Miraculous to Ladybug to unify with in person, but nope. This is seriously one of their defenses— I mean, explanations, for why Adrien isn't allowed to be in the final battle, because they thought it would be more important to give Marinette her 10th new form in three seasons than letting Adrien get some form of closure with his father.

And here's the final reason they gave in the commentary. Remember that dream sequence of Marinette dressed as a knight that was also sort of foreshadowed in “Gabriel Agreste”? Turns out, the writers wanted to, and stop me if you've heard this before, play with the tropes and symbolism of fairy tales. Wow, I've never seen any kind of pop culture do that before... except for Into the Woods, The Princess Bride, Hook, Shrek, Princess Tutu, Ella Enchanted, Hoodwinked!, Enchanted, Tangled, Once Upon a Time, Frozen, RWBY, Ever After High, Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarves, Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, and Nimona. But other than those, that's so original!

Even though the writers are acting like they're breaking new ground, do you want to know what they mean by this? They're just doing another damsel in distress situation but this time, Adrien, the boy, is the one who needs to be saved by Marinette, who is, GASP, a girl?! WOW! That totally changes everything!

Okay, yes, the damsel in distress trope has usually been seen as a misogynistic one due to the fact that the people who needed to be saved are usually women, but like I mentioned way back in my “Gabriel Agreste” review, just swapping the genders isn't enough to breathe new life into a trope as old as this one. It's arguably worse because Adrien isn't just someone who needs to be saved. He's a superhero, and like I mentioned, there were plenty of options to get him out of his room in London.

And I'm guessing that some of you are thinking, “But IOTA! You just want Adrien to save the day by himself because he's a guy!” Just remember that I had this exact same problem last season where the roles were reversed. Remember how I hated the way Marinette's arc about dealing with the stress of being Guardian was hijacked by Adrien complaining about Ladybug not trusting him? This time, we have an arc about Adrien trying to break free from his father's influence that's been hijacked by Marinette needing to save Adrien by herself, robbing him of any agency he had to the plot entirely. This issue isn't about gender. It's never been about gender. I would have the exact same problem if Adrien was the one who confronted Monarch by himself while Marinette was trapped in her room.

This leads to the biggest problem I have with this plot development: It ultimately goes against the core theme of teamwork the show keeps trying to convey. Remember how last season, Marinette needed to learn to let other people trust her? Now, she's going to beat up Monarch all by herself without any help. Remember how last season, Adrien needed to prove he didn't deserve to be left in the dark about everything? Now, he's going to stay all the way in London while his partner gets in the fight of her life. It's detrimental to both of them as characters, and makes everything that happened to them in Season 4 completely pointless.

Okay, now that I've spent five pages ranting about this insane decision, let's get back on track, shall we? As the Perfect Alliance app helps Adrien and Kagami calm down, Marinette sneaks into the Agreste mansion as Ladybug. Meanwhile, Nathalie has her own nightmare about Gabriel winning, AKA, the very thing she could have stopped a long time ago by ratting her evil boss out to Ladybug and Cat Noir.

We then learn just what the Perfect Alliance app really does. Basically, thanks to the technobabble, it helps alleviate the stress from their nightmares. Or, to put it in Layman's terms, Gabriel and Tomoe plan to get the entire population of Earth addicted to cyber crack. We see this affect several of Marinette's classmates, but because Mylene has a sudden disdain for technology that “Was made without respect for the Earth's resources”, she's the only one who sees the problem here. I'd ask why this wasn't established earlier this season, but it doesn't matter, since Mylene gives in anyway,

Because it's a day that ends with a “Y”, Gabriel goes to talk to Emilie's body yet again, and it seems like even the writers realized how tired this got, as Nathalie finally decided to ambush him with a crossbow.

Miss Sancoeur, I served with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I knew Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy the Vamprie Slayer was a friend of mine. Miss Sancoeur, you're no Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Yes, it only took five seasons worth of evil plans for Nathalie to realize just how demented her boss really is.

Nathalie: I can't let you do that... if you make the wish to bring her back, someone will have to go in her place. Emilie would never have agreed to this!

Gabriel: Do you think I'd be monstrous enough to sacrifice a human being?

Uh... yes? That is literally what equivalent exchange means. You really don't know how the wish works after researching it?

Shockingly, the frail woman armed with nothing but a crossbow isn't able to stop someone with superpowers. There isn't even a fight. Monarch just knocks the crossbow out of her hands and she faints. Maybe you should have actually come up with some sort of plan before confronting Gabriel by yourself, dumbass.

Back to Ladybug, she searches through Gabriel's stuff and finally learns he's Monarch... even though she should already know thanks to Felix and Kagami's play last episode. She even looks pretty shocked to see Monarch detransform.

Back to the commentary, the writers justify this with their absurd “Every episode can be watched on its own” rule. Because simply having Marinette say she already knows was out of the equation, I guess. Seriously, earlier in the episode, Tikki (who, along with Plagg, wasn't affected by the nightmare dust for some reason) had doubts that Marinette should break into the Agreste mansion, and it came across like neither of them knew the truth, and this was a reckless decision that wasn't motivated by Gabriel being Monarch at all. Once again, the writers fail to understand the idea of using “Previously On...” segments to help new viewers catch up on what's happening. It's even more confusing when you remember that Tikki knows Adrien is Cat Noir, so his father being Monarch coupled with his sudden absence should be setting off all kinds of red flags in her book.

Ladybug tries to text Cat Noir about who Monarch really is, but chooses not to send it after Gabriel pushes a few of her buttons. Rather than jumping Gabriel while she still has the element of surprise, she only chooses to grill Nathalie for questions once Gabriel is out of the room. And of course, only when she's on death's door does Nathalie tell Ladybug to stop Monarch, but not before telling her to transform back.

We see Gabriel and Tomoe put their plan into action. They create a fake scene of Ladybug and Cat Noir kidnapping Adrien and Kagami in order to rile up the public (who aren't in the best state of mind thanks to the nightmares) in order to for them to use the Alliance rings to transform them into the “Miraculized”. In other words, it's basically “Heroes' Day” all over again. Seriously, think about it. Just like “Heroes' Day”, it looks like Adrien is being harmed by Ladybug in an attempt to push the population to the brink of despair so Gabriel can create an army in the process. Yeah, the public doesn't know the two are the same, but the audience does. Granted, this is a minor nitpick compared to the rest of my problems with this episode, but I hope you can see what I'm getting at here.

Case in point, the reason Nathalie told Ladybug to detransform was because Gabriel has found a way to track her and Cat Noir through their “quantum signatures”. With Cat Noir, it was thanks to the dust from Gabriel's Cataclysm wound, and with Ladybug, it was thanks to the Magical Charm she gave Gabriel earlier in “Gabriel Agreste”... which he shouldn't have since it was destroyed in “Dearest Family”.

Seriously, this is the season finale. How the hell are the writers still struggling to remember important events like this?

Now's as good a time as any to talk about the Miraculized's design. Yeah, they're pretty lame. They all look like they're wearing fencing gear, and don't look intimidating in the slightest. They also now have the ability to use every Miraculous power at once, which breaks the previously established rules about the Alliance rings in that only one ring can handle each Miraculous power. You could at least argue that the robots used in “Confrontation” had more advanced technology that made them capable of using multiple powers, but nothing has changed about the Alliance rings to justify this. And remember, this is something every Miraculized in the world can use, yet the system hasn't been completely fried, and as we'll later see Monarch can still freely use the other Kwamis' power even when they're being shared with the Miraculized across the world. In fact, how can the Miraculized even transform like this? Monarch doesn't akumatize anyone to spread this transformation. Gabriel just tells to say “Alliance, Miraculize Me!”, and now they can transform. Was this always a function of the Alliance rings? Is there a tiny Akuma hidden in each ring? How the hell does any this work?

Ladybug fights off some of the Miraculized who used Voyage to find her, and remembers Nathalie's advice to detransform. So just like in “Passion”, even though she's still wearing her Miraculous, the system specifically designed to track her down isn't able to find her unless she's still transformed. Marinette runs away to a safe place before running into Plagg, who tells her Cat Noir is out of commission. With no other options, Marinette decides to unify with the Ladybug and Cat Miraculous, turning into Bug Noire, revealing her identity to Monarch in the process, and ending the episode.

Bug Noire's design is admittedly pretty nice. I like the balance of red, black, and green, though the hair is a little too long for my taste. Granted, I still don't get why this is the reason why Adrien can't be here to fight Monarch alongside his partner. I'm just saying, was it really worth it, writers?

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE EPISODE IS... NATHALIE

Yep, right before the finish line, Nathalie gets her second award this season. After spending several episodes doing nothing but letting herself rot away, Nathalie only chose to finally do something about Gabriel once he was literally about to enact his final plan, thought she could stop him with nothing but a crossbow, and only begged Ladybug for help when it looked like she was about to die and had nothing left to lose.

“Re-Creation”, the final episode of the season, starts off with Lila watching some broadcasts of people succumbing to their paranoia (and she does it while smirking because the writers still don't think we understand she's evil) and transforming into Miraculized while she puts on a new disguise that makes her look like an evil Edna Mode.

How come Lila isn't even affected by the nightmare dust like the rest of the human population? As always, never explained!

Back in the Agreste mansion, Bug Noire and Monarch are duking it out, and we get some pretty creative uses of Lucky Charm, like when she summons a piano to crash down on Monarch. Meanwhile, after Marinette's friends manage to get the Alliance ring off a Miraculized Ivan, we get to see how the rest of the world is dealing with the Miraculized. In Shanghai, the Renlings help Fei through her nightmares, Su-Han has recruited Jagged Stone, Luka, Penny and Fang to the Order of the Guardians instead of actually getting backup like he said he would in “Multiplication”, Present Bunnix finally decides to do something and uses Burrow to sent the Guardians to Paris, while the United Heroez fight off the Miraculized and learn the true nature of the Alliance rings. Just remember, it was too much for the writers to let Adrien get involved in the final battle, yet all these side characters get to do something in the finale for some reason.

Meanwhile, as if things couldn't get any worse, Nino decides the Resistance needs to get involved after reassuring Mr. Damocles that they never give up. Believe me, not much would change if you guys just threw in the towel, especially now that the United Heroez are here, and have Eagle, a member whose powers work as an instant cure for everyone's nightmares. Hey, while we're on the subject, does anyone know where the United Heroez were this entire season? I can excuse Fei as she's just one teenager in Shanghai, but the Americans have a small army of heroes, including the president, yet they just let two violent coups in France happen last week.

As Bug Noire and Monarch keep fighting, Bug Noire comes up with the brilliant idea to Cataclysm the Butterfly Miraculous, only being foiled by Monarch already having Resistance active. Okay, is a side effect of using the Cat Miraculous this season a taste for blood? Why the hell are the heroes so okay with trying to use Cataclysm on their enemies now? Bug Noire then decides to use her Cataclysm for something far more reasonable, breaking the ground beneath her and Monarch. Because I guess Bug Noire is really gunning for Biggest Idiot this episode.

Back with the Resistance, they meet up with the Guardians, United Heroez, and Ladydragon, who have actually been getting shit done. Wow, it's just like that scene from that one movie where all the characters we've come to know over the years rally together for the final battle! What was it called again? Oh yeah, Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over.

While the other heroes are overwhelmed by the Miraculized, we cut back to Bug Noire and Monarch yet again, now inside the area where Emilie's body is. The two keep fighting as Monarch tells Bug Noire why he's doing all this, all while Lila breaks into the mansion.

Monarch: I want my wife, Adrien's mother, to come back to us! Once our family is reunited, Kagami and Adrien will become the eternal icons of this world! And we will be here to witness their absolute triumph!

Bug Noire: “Your wife”? “Come back”? “Kagami and Adrien, eternal icons”? How many lives are you going to ruin in the name of your crazy dreams?!

Monarch: As many as it takes! In order to bring Emilie back, someone else will have to disappear! In order to heal the wound that Cat Noir inflicted on me, someone else will have to be wounded!

Bug Noire: Someone else? But who?

Monarch: Anyone! No one matters except us! How about you, Marinette? Wouldn't you give your life for your sweet Adrien's happiness?

Bug Noire: Do you really think that's what he'd want? To discover that his father has turned into a supervillain, willing to make innocent people pay the price of his madness?

Monarch: Adrien would do the same thing!

Bug Noire: Never! Unlike you, Adrien has made his peace with it. He's not living in the past! He has a whole life ahead of him!

Bug Noire: You'd know this if you ever took an interest in him. But in reality, Adrien means NOTHING to you anymore! You've locked him in your house! Locked him in your Alliance rings!

Bug Noire: Locked him into a life that allows you to hide behind him in order to justify YOUR madness!

Monarch: All I want is for him to be happy!

Remember all of this, because it's going to be important soon.

Bug Noire uses her Lucky Charm, and gets a tube of glue. She uses some of it on this random boomerang she found (I'm assuming it's the remains of Nathalie's crossbow), sticks it to her yo-yo, and then throws it at Emilie's coffin. Monarch reflexively grabs the sticky boomerang, and loses all of the rings on his right hand just as Bug Noire uses Cataclysm on the elevator to get to this area of the mansion, with the intent on CRUSHING EMILIE WITH IT. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen! Monarch saves his wife, but because he's distracted, he can't stop Bug Noire from throwing her staff at the Butterfly Miraculous, knocking it off and reverting Monarch back to Gabriel. Bug Noire ties up Gabriel's feet, and when Gabriel tries to sucker punch her with Venom, Bug Noire grabs the hand, threatening to Cataclysm the remaining Alliance rings and the two rings she should damn well know contain Adrien's Amok. Either she's bluffing, or we accidentally got the Paris Special universe's version of these events.

Bug Noire tries to reason with Gabriel, who then breaks down crying, showing how deep down, he just really cares about his family. And even though just six episodes ago, Marinette said that it was very easy for idealistic people to be taken advantage of by others, she buys into Gabriel's last-minute sob story, and wouldn't you know it, he stabs her in the back. Congratulations, Marinette. You just doomed the universe. Even when the Dino Charge Rangers accidentally got everyone on their planet killed, they were at least able to fix it themselves.

It's time to go back to the commentary, where we can learn the writers' true intent for this scene. They honestly believe that both Marinette and Gabriel care for Adrien in their own ways, and the whole reason that Marinette chose to trust Gabriel was to teach the lesson that it's important to talk out your feelings with others... a lesson that fails because 1) Marinette had already beaten Gabriel through violence, 2) Marinette trusting Gabriel backfired horribly, and 3) Gabriel won because he took advantage of Marinette's trust! You can't teach a lesson about trust when for all intents and purposes, Marinette once again lost BECAUSE SHE CHOSE TO TRUST SOMEONE!

Even though he had to unify with Tikki and Plagg to try making the wish in “Deflagration” (I really shouldn't have used the “Great Continuity!” clip earlier), we get yet another retcon this season: Tikki and Plagg have to reveal their true forms. Yeah, I know Tikki's true form was briefly seen in “Dearest Family”, but that doesn't change the fact that Monarch didn't do this when he had the Ladybug and Cat Miraculous in “Deflagration”.

Tikki and Plagg's true forms just look okay. I like the otherworldly theme, but they don't really stand out much. They honestly look more like forms Ladybug and Cat Noir would have than anything else.

It's here that we get the culmination of five seasons' worth of lore. After a brief glimpse of it in “Ephemeral”, Tikki and Plagg, the Kwamis of Creation and Destruction will merge their energies to form their true true form, the Kwami of Reality itself, able to grand any wish asked. This majestic, otherworldly being's name? Gimmi. Just... Gimmi. The commentary claims they're named after an ABBA song, and I wish I was making this up.

Like with Tikki and Plagg's true forms, Gimmi has an okay design. They're just a little too pink for something meant to be a fusion of the red Tikki and the black Plagg.

As Marinette begs Gabriel not to go through with this, Gabriel doesn't think twice about it, and instead, gives Marinette the rings containing Adrien's Amok, along with a request, fully aware that his time is almost up.

Gabriel: Marinette, make sure that Adrien never knows about the villain that I was, but instead, that he remembers the times I tried to be a good father.

Alright, we've finally gotten to the most controversial part of the episode: Gabriel's “redemption”, and I put that term extremely loosely.

Put aside the fact that almost a third of this season was spent telling the audience that a certain character who shall not be named is beyond saving despite working alongside him multiple times for the past two seasons, Gabriel's last-minute redemption falls flat because he doesn't even seem to feel remorse for what he's done. Not once does he actually say he's sorry for what he's done, just how Emilie's death affected him. That's understandable, but he doesn't even seem to acknowledge the weight of his actions or how many lives have been endangered. Remember earlier, when Monarch said he was perfectly okay with sacrificing someone else if it means his family can be happy? Yeah, that never comes back, especially now that him making the wish is portrayed as a good thing when every time it's been discussed ever since it was first explained in “Robostus” just how dangerous actually using it is.

In fact, let's discuss the fact that Gabriel is getting to make the wish in the first place. The whole idea of this basically contradicts Gabriel supposedly realizing he's gone too far. Rather than just having Gabriel give up his quest and let Emilie rest in peace, we're supposed to be happy that Gabriel double-crossed Marinette even when the music is making it seem like it's a bad thing... WHICH IT IS! Once again, for a show that loves to go on and on about how powerful love is, it really loves to show people getting screwed over whenever they decide to show compassion to their enemies. Imagine if in Return of the Jedi, when Luke chose to not give into the Dark Side by sparing Vader, Vader took the chance to kick him in the crotch while he was distracted. That's basically what happened here.

Next, notice how Gabriel specifically asks Marinette to make sure Adrien never learns the truth about who he was, and “Remembers the times he tried to be a good father”. After everything he's done, Gabriel isn't even willing to let Adrien learn about what he's done, because he wants him to focus exclusively on the times he TRIED to be a good father. This isn't the matter of Gabriel missing Adrien's fencing tournament because he had an important business meeting. Gabriel was a literal supervillain who preyed on innocent people in order to obtain absolute power, and he wasn't even a good father to his only kid. He was neglectful, controlling, and in the last few months of his life, spent more time trying to ruin his relationship with his girlfriend for no reason other than because he thought his associate's kid was a better match for him. He was a terrible father, and Gabriel even seems to be aware of this, but rather than find a way to repent for everything he's done, Gabriel is basically going to take the coward's way out by forcing Marinette to sugarcoat his life instead of admitting he was, at the very least, a flawed parent, all so Adrien will feel bad when he finally drops dead.

And yeah, let's talk about how Gabriel assumes that Adrien shouldn't be allowed to know the truth... WHEN THAT'S NOT HIS DECISION TO MAKE. Adrien should be the one to judge whether he believes Gabriel was a good father or not. Of course Gabriel would assume he was a good father despite the numerous red flags, but Adrien is another story. By keeping the truth hidden from Adrien, you're depriving him of a potentially important moment in his life where he finally learns to break free from his father's influence. Instead, even though he's a fucking superhero, we're just supposed to accept the fact that Adrien is just a poor, fragile, sensitive baby boy who can't handle hearing any bad news or else I guess he'll explode. It says a lot when, of all movies, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier did a better job handling an idea like this, by saying that pain is a natural part of life.

But let's talk about the biggest problem with this turn of events: The fact that it essentially vindicates everything Gabriel has done, with or without the mask, as well as essentially convey a pro-child abuse message. In case you weren't around before I posted this review, I asked my followers who have been victims of child abuse or poor parenting to share their experiences so I could get an idea of how similar they were to what Adrien has had to go through. And a lot of them were pretty similar.

During almost all of what I read from these people, their parents or guardians shared one thing in common: An inability to admit being wrong. All of them tended to either blame their kids for whatever happened to them, or find ways to justify their poor treatment. As far as they're concerned, it's the kid's fault that they're being treated so poorly. And while I'm sure a handful of people isn't enough to survey the entire population of abuse victims on this planet, the fact that some of these people, as in actual victims of child abuse, were able to see similarities with their own upbringings and the way the main villain treats his son and don't buy the show deciding to act like all of that was perfectly okay says a lot about how much this finale dropped the ball when it came to the lesson it wanted to teach.

Yes, from what I've read from my followers and other things online, some abusive parents do believe that what they're doing to their children is out of a warped view of love, but that isn't enough to validate their actions completely, and it obviously doesn't validate Gabriel's actions during the last five seasons. During the entire run of the show, Gabriel has denied his son a normal life, treats him like an object, and despite claiming that he really loves him deep down, he almost never shows it. It seemed like the show was either going to have Gabriel realize the error of his ways due to how fruitless they ended up being, but having him get the upper hand on Marinette at the very last second ultimately makes it so all of his effort, every evil plan, every civilian endangered, was all worth it. And that's why Gabriel's final moments supposedly acting like he's repented for his actions don't work, and why it turned what was initially just a boring finale into one that was beyond infuriating.

And I'm assuming that you're thinking to yourself, what exactly is the wish Gabriel was so desperate to make that he tricked Marinette at the last second?

We never really learn what kind of wish Gabriel makes using Gimmi, even in the epilogue. I'm also going to talk about this in a later post, but of course Astruc, being Astruc had to give his usual sarcastic remarks to anyone who had the slightest question about what the hell just happened.

I love how someone will ask something like “Do you mind clearing up a few questions I have about the season finale?”, and Astruc will hear what they said as if they just asked, “Is Mylene secretly the reincarnation of the Anti-Christ?”.

So Gabriel makes his wish, somehow reunites with Emilie's soul as he ascends to Heaven... until the angels realize they made a horrible mistake, and send Gabriel to his custom-made Tenth Circle of Hell. Reality itself is rewritten and all of the characters we've come to know over the past five seasons are effectively dead. If that isn't supposed to be a happy ending, I don't know what is.

According to the transcript, it's been a month after the wish is made, we see how Paris has changed since then. Not only has Miss Bustier given birth to her baby, she's also been elected as Mayor of Paris, already passing her first law, the “Eco Rule”.

Miss Bustier: It consists of very simple principles: don't take more from the Earth than what it can give us, distribute its riches equitably and don't pollute more than it can recycle.

Remember when Mylene said that you can't solve climate change with a single law? I guess the writers forgot to recycle that moral too, because despite the vague as hell guidelines, Paris has already adapted to function without plastic wrappers or cars. Just remember, it's only been one month since the wish was made. Even Star Trek needed at least 130 years and a nuclear war before its utopian society could be established. And that's not even getting into the new school she's helped create.

Miss Bustier: In this new school, there will be no classes or struggling to get good grades. Children of all ages will be able to intermix and freely access all kinds of activities.

The fuck you mean “no grades”?! How the hell will that even work?! We're supposed to see this as her being an impressive politician, but it comes across like some grade schooler's “If I were president” essay. And remember, ONE. MONTH.

How else has the Eco Rule been implemented? All of the Alliance rings have been melted down and reforged into a statue honoring... the great hero, Gabriel Agreste.

Yep. This is the ultimate fate of the main villain after five seasons of terrorizing the city of Paris: He gets a fucking statue in his honor. Are we sure this is a victory for the good guys? And no, just surviving the villain's master plan doesn't count as a win.

Even better, according to Adrien, he somehow helped defeat Monarch... even though Gabriel is Monarch, so is Monarch a different person in this world? What about Monarch's previous identities, Hawkmoth and Shadowmoth? Did they still exist in this world? They had to, considering that Chloe and Andre are still nowhere to be seen since the revolution, implying that either she's different in this world, or she also betrayed Ladybug for the same reasons. Nathalie is also back in full health, so did she ever use the Peacock? Was the Peacock ever damaged? We see Felix has it in this new world, but Emilie is still dead, so did she die of different causes in this timeline? Speaking of time, what happened to Bunnix? Did she survive too? Is she aware of the changes to the world like she was in “Cat Blanc”?

To summarize, WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!?

Adrien is hesitant to wear the ring because he's not sure if he can ever be even half the man his amazing father was. Marinette tells Adrien to be himself while handing the ring to him. So... was this an order? If so, was it intentional? Does Marinette even know what she's doing, or because she's a product of Gabriel's wish, she has to do this without a hitch? In fact, when he made the wish, why didn't Gabriel make Adrien, Felix, and Kagami humans instead of forcing them to rely on rings containing their souls that can easily break?

This scene is a great way to summarize Adrienette this season: The writers trying to write a heartwarming scene while hoping the audience doesn't think too hard about all the uncomfortable things it implies.

After reforging the Miraculous she got back from Monarch, Marinette decides to hand them off. Because fuck it, let's break the temp hero rule while we're at it! Chloe who? Ladybug, Cat Noir, Rena Rouge, Carapace, Viperion, Pegasus, Ryuko, Vesperia, Polymouse, Pigella, Purple Tigress, Miss Hound, Rooster Bold, Caprikid, Minotaurox, Bunnix, and even Argos (despite being the reason the heroes lost their Miraculous in the first place) assemble, ready for whatever challenge the world throws at them. Also, there's no reveal between Ladybug and Cat Noir this season because the writers still want to drag this plotline out, even when there's no excuse as to why they can't now that Monarch is gone.

We then learn who got the Butterfly Miraculous: Lila, who plans to get revenge on Marinette. Yep, the girl who has never even touched a Miraculous in five seasons is going to be Hawkmoth's successor. Not Tomoe (who I should mention never answered for being Gabriel's accomplice), not Audrey, not even Chloe. It's Lila. How the hell did she even get it anyway? Did Gabriel intentionally recreate the world to have Lila get the Butterfly Miraculous, or did Lila somehow retain her memories through close proximity to the wish and--

Fuck it, season's over anyway. Thank God...

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE EPISODE IS...MARINETTE

While I can't say for certain what she did with Adrien is her fault thanks to Gabriel making the wish, I can say a good chunk of the things Marinette did leading up to Gabriel winning are on her. She recklessly used her Cataclysm multiple times in her fight with Monarch, tried to crush Emilie's comatose body with debris, once again chose to gloat about how she was going to take Gabriel's Miraculous instead of just doing it the first chance she got, seemingly forgot Adrien was a Sentimonster, and somehow managed to lose even when she had Gabriel at her mercy.

So, yeah... this finale was terrible, if it wasn't obvious from this review.

It was just a complete trainwreck from start to finish. A good chunk of the first part was spent either ignoring the events of the last episode, or coming up with excuses as to why Adrien shouldn't get involved. And that's not even getting into Nathalie's “redemption”, which only really happened once she had nothing to lose, seeing how she was even closer to dying than Gabriel was. In fact, now that I think about it, why was more emphasis given to Nathalie's declining health over Gabriel? You know, the guy who's enacting his final plan because he's supposedly hours from death, yet effortlessly manages to clone himself, fly around the world as an Akuma, and keep up with Bug Noire when he struggled to enact a plan that required him to leave the lair without traveling around the world during “Intuition”? Given how we now know that the writers wanted the final battle to involve Bug Noire, I'm starting to think they also prioritized her opponent being in top shape while ignoring the Cataclysm wound affecting him.

The second half was mostly boring thanks to just how low the stakes felt. We know where Adrien is, and since Bug Noire was fighting Monarch, there was no danger of them taking her Miraculous, so for the most part, the Miraculized fighting the other heroes just felt like padding. Nobody even seemed to look for Ladybug or Cat Noir, not even the heroes. Of course, then we got to Gabriel's wish. I've gone over this before, but it bears repeating. Gabriel's “redemption” just doesn't work due to how little effort is spent actually making the audience feel bad for him other than saying “His wife is dead, and he's sad, so that justifies everything”. It doesn't help that we kind of had four episodes explaining why some people can't change, and it wasn't used when talking about Gabriel, but rather, Chloe and Lila. Because these writers really have their priorities straight.

The ending of the season itself practically falls apart with how many plotholes and unfortunate implications it has. And before you say that stuff like Adrien once again being left in the dark can be resolved next season, here's the thing: This was planned to be the series finale with how everything feels wrapped up. There's a sense of finality that shows all the main characters getting their happy ending, and we're just supposed to not question the new utopia Paris is now, much less the fact that even after eight years, Ladybug and Cat Noir still don't know who the other is. Even putting that aside, the show has always done a poor job of following up on plotpoints established in earlier seasons, as the lunchroom scene from “Illusion” shows.

Here's a summary of all the lessons the finale teaches: We shouldn't hold terrorists accountable for their actions if they just say they love their family, abuse victims should be constantly coddled and shouldn't be allowed to know the truth about their viewers, it's okay to keep crucial information from your significant other, genocide is okay as long as the person who commits it says it's for a good cause, love for others can easily be taken advantage of, so never trust anyone, genocide is the only way to create an eco-friendly world, environmental protection laws can be passed within a month and nobody (not even car manufacturers) will complain, teenage girls are worse than abusive parents who double as supervillains, and even if it was planned for almost a decade, don't let your main heroine be the one to save the day, but rather, the villain.

If anyone reading this is planning on becoming a writer and is worried that people won't like their work, just remember that there are people who get paid to work on this show.

But yeah, this is how the season ends, not with a bang, but with a nosedive. I was mostly pissed off with how Seasons 3 and 4 ended, but here? I'm just disappointed. This was the finale that we waited eight years for. The epic final battle against Monarch, and rather than the ultimate fight to the finish, the writers came with several excuses to not involve one of the two main characters in the final battle, the other main character fails to actually save the day, and the villain is rewarded for all of actions because he chose to turn himself into a messiah. I tuned into this season to at least see how the story would end out of curiosity, but it didn't even deliver an ending that made all the pointless filler, poor writing, and bad characterization worth it. I started this finale off bored, and I ended up furious for how lackluster this ending felt. It says a lot when this finale has been compared to Star vs. the Forces of Evil in terms of just screwing everything up.

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE SEASON IS... MARINETTE

Marinette may not have been able to beat Gabriel in terms of stopping his plan, but she did manage to outdo him in terms of stupidity. Because she got the award four times this season (Evolution, Revelation, Confrontation, Re-Creation), she takes home the title of Biggest Idiot.

And for those who are curious or didn't keep up with my reviews, Gabriel gets second place with three Biggest Idiot Awards (Intuition, Protection, Revolution), we have a five-way tie for third place with Luka (Determination, Migration), Mayor Andre (Adoration, Action), Chloe (Deflagration, Collusion), Felix (Emotion, Representation), and Nathalie (Passion, Conformation), who all got the award twice, and a ten-way tie for fourth place with Alya (Multiplication), Xuppu (Destruction), Mr. Damocles (Jubiliation), Nino (Illusion), Joan of Arc (Reunion), Ice Cream Man Andre (Elation), Kagami (Perfection), Kim (Derision), and Tomoe (Pretension) each getting the award once.

And with that, we're done with Season 5. It's been a long road, but all I can say is...

At least, until the analysis and ranking posts.

[elemom]

What are your thoughts on Echo and Dr. Julien's relationship?

Hi anon. I sure hope you’re prepared for a yap sesh!

I have SO MUCH to say about them.

TL;DR: Echo is Julien’s son AND his deeply flawed creation. And that dynamic is Difficult.

We’ll start off with:

Dr. Julien’s Perspective

Ok so i think the most important thing to get outta the way is that i don’t think Julien is *evil,* but rather he occupies a “creator” dynamic with echo (and by extension, zane) i’ll explain more, hopefully

I personally think Julien created Echo out of desperation and loneliness. The first time he was lonely, back in the birchwood forest, he built zane, and that basically fixed his loneliness problem. After such a long time in the lighthouse, he was desperate for *anything* to help him in his isolation.

Thus, I don’t think he was in a clear mindset when he was creating echo. Fueled by grief and a little bit of hubris (*he created mechanical life for crying out loud, he should never have to be alone again when he can just infinitely create consciousness!*) he used zane’s blueprints to build a brand new nindroid.

As the process went on, i think he lost more of that clarity and ended up wanting this nindroid to be a new zane, something he would later be deeply ashamed of when he realized he basically just built a replacement son. Once echo is complete enough to be activated, I think he realizes just how bad of a hole he’d dug himself. He’s disappointed: not in Echo, in but himself. He tried to create a life in the image of someone else, and he couldn’t even do that right.

Which brings me to the “creator” dynamic. While Julien sees Echo as a son, he also sees him as his creation; he’s something to fix and perfect and fine tune. Echo is imperfect, and as a creator, Julien wants to fix those imperfections. He views Echo (and zane) as sons, but also as his creations, and that’s a *really* hard dynamic to balance.

(as an aside, I dont think echo or zane mind getting tune ups/upgrades/etc. I think a lot of the internal conflict julien has with echo is because he needs *so many* fixes that it’s hardly feasible to do, so he’s left dealing with echo’s imperfections and echo is left as kind of A Mess.)

Now all the stuff I mentioned above about the creator + creation dynamic is still there, but I don’t think it’s the MAIN thing going on. I really truly believe Julien was a good father to Echo despite their circumstances. Like, I think he made Gizmo as a buddy for Echo like he made the falcon for Zane, he made toys and stuff for him, played chess with him, etc. However, I think Julien’s disappointment with himself and his regret over creating a replacement for Zane occasionally comes through.

Which leads me to…

Echo’s Perspective

Echo is completely 100% trusting of Julien. That’s the big thing, I’d say. After all, it was Julien that gave him life, who cares for him and reassures him when he’s down. (And he’s also the only other person Echo knows.)

It’s this trust that leads to Echo’s…. Issues. See, Echo eventually comes to realize something’s up with how Julien sees him — or at least, how Julien seems to act when certain topics about his creation come up. Like I mentioned in his section, Julien can’t hide the disappointment/regret/etc he feels about creating echo — none of which are echo’s fault of course. But echo sees that he’s imperfect and that his father sometimes gets upset and he blames himself for that.

Echo knows Julien doesn’t hate him. He knows he’s trying his best and that he really does care. But he still wants to do everything in his power to make Julien happy. So he’s keenly aware of how he’s Not Zane and how he’s Not Perfect and how his father created him to Be Zane but didn’t do a great job at it. Julien always reassures him that he loves him, and it’s true! Julien *does* love him. But Echo feels like he could be doing better.

Depending on your interpretation and headcanons and AUs and all that, Echo can stay in this state of trust after s2 (waiting in the lighthouse for an eternity) or go in the complete opposite direction (Rejecting the idea of being Zane and becoming Mr E)

I might go into more detail about Mr Echo and how being found by the SoG impacted his view of Dr J. If you wanna see that, I’d be glad to infodump abt it on another post :3c

I also have some thoughts about Why echo got left behind in the lighthouse, but i dont think any of them were out of malice on Julien’s part. Some are worse than others, but I think he wanted to go back Eventually.

Maybe he died shortly after s2 and didn’t have the time to go back. Maybe Echo had shut down due to malfunctions and Julien didn’t know he was alive (Gizmo would have repaired him before the events of s6). Or maybe Julien was procrastinating, because he would have to admit to zane that he tried to replace him. Or maybe he just forgor 💀

ANYWAY thanks so much for asking!!! If you or anybody else ever wants to hear any more hcs feel free to send me asks about them. Because I have a LOT to say. I have put enough mental energy into thinking about the jfam that i could probably power Los Angeles for a month.

(disclaimer, many of these HCs come from melting together a bunch of ideas from fanart and fics and HC posts on tumblr, so a lot of these thoughts aren’t original.)

[vikuo-kuma]

Perfect the way You are

A/N: being bombarded with request 😔

Warning: guaranteed to have sensitive topics, but it will be fluffy, either way if you’re uncomfortable with anything weight related you don’t need to read it, 🙏 (also smh Dot)

Requested

—

You always seem to find yourself staring at any sort of reflection. Whether it would be a mirror or even a window, you were always met with a vision of your younger self, being slightly thicker side. Even though, you had lost weight, your past always seemed to have ways to haunt you. Through the way you eat, through the way dark thoughts always find their way back into your mind.

Nevertheless, you had managed to slowly recover from your way of thinking, through the help of your parents’s support. But one thing still remains the same, it was the portion of food you would eat.

In time, though, your confidence had also improved, it was enough to ask your parents if you could go to school again.

And to your surprise, they allowed you to. Although they had agreed to let you go to school, tears were flowing down your parents’s eyes, finding themselves proud of your improvement on your self image. It was safe to say that they cared a lot about you and your mental health, seeing that your parents had bombarded you with many questions, ‘Would you be ok?!’ ‘Do you know a way to contact us?!’ ‘Update us whenever you can!’.

The usual things concern parents would say. It took you about an hour reassuring them that you were okay, and that they shouldn’t have to worry too much. Eventually they finally left, letting you to go into the school of magic at last.

—

During the months in school, you had made friends, which would then lead to the creation of friend group consisting of Mash, Lance, Lemon, Finn, and Dot. They had truly made you feel comfortable, they had made you feel safe. That safe feeling almost made you forget about your experience from the past. Yet somehow it was brought up once again.

You were at a picnic with the group, enjoying your time and the company they gave you. There was a variety of foods, spread on the table, making your eyes shine brightly. As you were ecstatic, wanting to try each dish that had caught your eyes. So, you grabbed a bite, tasting each delicacy your friends had brought. You haven’t noticed but they were all looking at you, smiling. They were glad they finally got to see you eat, knowing that you usually held in your hungry when it came to hanging out.

But that’s when Dot decided to speak up, “You know.. if you keep eating too much you’re gonna get fat”, with a smirk, it was a friendly gesture but it seems to have triggered something within you.

There was a sudden stop in your motion. Like you suddenly froze, the fork from your hand dropped onto your plate. Fat. That word was repeated over and over again in your head. It was like a key to destroying the wall you build around that experience. You closed your mouth, pursing your lips. Your mind started to cloud itself, filling it with dark thoughts you had pushed away long ago.

“Rig-” “What’s wrong with that?”, a voice had spoken up, interrupting you in the process, it was monotonous, very recognizable. Huh? Your eyes wandered to the sound of the voice. It was Mash, he was munching on a cream puff as he spoke. “I think that’s what makes them unique”, Mash continued to express his thoughts, you had a shock expression resting upon your face. You felt kind of weird, in a good way.

“Mash, I was joking..”, Dot tried to defend himself, but the dark haired male look at him confused. “But aren’t jokes supposed to be funny?”

—

Note: Love yourselves people 👹

[mythicalartisttm]

What’s your opinion on transgenders people? I ask as i have seen you reblog a few things and I am unsure on your stance. I mean this in no judgmental way i would just like to know your thoughts

anon this ask both excites me and fills me with caution, but! I will provide you with what you seek!

what do I think about transgender people? Here’s my answer to that, but be warned, it is lengthy!

1) they’re to be treated as people, not outcasts. Human is human, and we are supposed to treat fellow humans with love, care, and respect, even if we don’t agree with the people in question, or if it’s just plain hard.

2) I say this with gentleness: their perceptions of themselves are skewed*, and there are many reasons for this with the primary one being that we live in a broken world, which leads to everything else. But one of the absolute worst things we can do to trans people/ people who want to be trans, regardless of the reason, is to go along with the idea that they are or can be any other gender than the one they were born with. As you can probably tell, I believe in the God of the Bible, and that while human hands may have written the physical book, He speaks through the people that wrote it. So let’s let His Word do the talking.

You know the creation story, yeah? It’s ok if you don’t, let’s recap anyways:

Every day for 6 days, God made aspects of our universe, and when He declared everything finished – perfect! God’s work ain’t finished ‘till it’s perfect – He rested on the 7th day (Genesis 1 and 2). On the 6th day He made humans, male and female, and they were made in the image of God Himself (Gen. 2:26). They were also the only aspect of creation God formed with His own hands; Genesis 2:7 says God made the first man from the dust of the earth, and verses 21-22 says He took a piece of the man to make the first woman.

That might not seem huge to you, but it speaks volumes of the care God put into humanity specifically. Everything else – the sun, stars, sky, trees, dogs, almost everything you can think of – God simply spoke them into existence. But for humans; for you, anon? He got up, got His hands dirty, and shaped your head, your heart, your spirit, your body. He gave humanity a literal special touch that He gave to nothing else.

This is reinforced again by God speaking through king David’s Psalm 139, verses 13-16:

13 You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body     and knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!     Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. 15 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,     as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. 16 You saw me before I was born.     Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out     before a single day had passed.

God is omnipresent, meaning that He’s everywhere all the time any time, and nothing escapes His knowledge. This includes the creation of a new human being (again: male or female, no secret 3rd option for this one). And because God Himself – who makes no mistakes – oversees and ordains the creation of every new little boy or girl, wouldn’t it make sense that God would make them as He intended to make them: perfectly, without mistake? There is then no ground for the “born in the wrong body” argument to stand on, because God made your body with you in mind; your body was made specifically for you, and there were no errors on His end.

Now, what if you just straight up don’t like your body? I think everyone has disliked their body and/or felt uncomfortable in it at some point, that includes me. If someone’s going through puberty then they are almost guaranteed to be uncomfortable in their body because that kiddo and their body both are growing up. Sometimes you’re uncomfortable in your body simply because it’s changing, but this particular change is a good thing! Going through puberty is a sign that your body is working as it should, even if it feels weird. To try and block this transition from happening, or deliberately alter it, is to actively harm your body’s natural progression.

So yes, I do think that a trans person’s view of their body – that they were made for a different body and so they should change it – is not only wrong, but harmful to themselves in the long run. Why are we affirming this; giving people of all ages the means to scar themselves to feel good in the now?

Last bit before the TL;DR: if there’s anyone out there who thinks God won’t except them for any reason that you can think of, I’m gonna stop you right there. There is grace for you. Yes, even for that; please refer to my pinned post. And also this.

My explanation doesn’t cover all bases I’m sure, but the TL;DR is that the human body is a sacred thing designed by God, with care, made differently and specifically for every individual person, and it is medical malpractice (evil) to alter it within the context of transgenderism. If you have undergone the gender transition at any time – or have done anything else, ever – God still loves you with his whole heart, and He wants you to let Him help you with whatever may have dragged you down this time. Even if it was self-inflicted.

Lastly, some stuff I didn’t know how to cleanly fit into All That

*it is worth noting that basically everyone has a skewed perception of themselves about different things and to different degrees, but in this context I mean “a skewed perception of how a trans person relates to their body”

Creation was deemed “good” before people, but after people, God declared it “very good.” Again, in Genesis 1. I literally cannot stress enough how much God wants people to come to Him for whatever the reason

Chloe Cole's discussion with Dr. Peterson + the comment section and the testimonies in it

this post

[accio-victuuri]

I’m sharing another heartwarming article from one of my favorite movie blogger/s ( 鬽影縫匠) on weibo that appreciates Wang Yibo ✨this was posted 11/6 as a sort of response to the GRA ceremony.

Although the Golden Rooster has ended, the scattered sparks have not been extinguished. Let’s chat about him through the remaining warmth, hoping it’s not too late...

As soon as the name “Wang Yibo” was spoken, the people were immediately divided into three or five camps. Some had thousands of lights flashing in their eyes, and some had a puddle of black water on their chests. Once a person becomes famous, he will become black and white in the world. Likes and dislikes are equally direct and violent, not to mention, he is still a young man standing on the top of the mountain. If someone wants to help him up to the blue clouds, someone will naturally want to pull him down to hell. But his choice surprised me. He neither looked up to the clouds nor stared down into the abyss. He was pious step by step, like a pilgrim heading towards his own "Temple of Light and Shadow", and in this year, he defined perfection.

"成全" is a wonderful word. It refers to both "helping others achieve their wishes" and "one's own perfection and completeness". It is very suitable to use this word as the keyword of Wang Yibo's 2023 big screen.

This year's Golden Rooster, Liu Xiaoshi won the "Best Director's Debut" with "Born to Fly", and Cheng Er won the "Best Director" with "Hidden Blade". In the interview, they mentioned a common name - Wang Yibo. In an art created by a collective, the director is the core, and the lead actor must be the part closest to the "core". They must not only achieve the director's creative intention by interpreting the characters, but also use their own influence to build momentum for the film. Wang Yibo is the leading star of these two works.

His appeal is unquestionable, his talent and hard work have been praised, and his ever-improving acting skills are obvious to all. Mr. Ye's "standing" supported half of the sky of "Hidden Blade" and helped the film become the highest-grossing literary film in mainland film history which gave Cheng Er, who insisted on serious creation, the confidence to win the award; and Lei Yu's vivid interpretation made the image of modern soldiers appear on the screen, giving "Born to Fly" a realistic focus. In this way, director Liu Xiaoshi "expected the main theme of aviation" "Creative and personalized expression of major themes" can be implemented; standing on the podium of the Golden Rooster is every director's lifelong wish, and a leading star like Wang Yibo must be the best person to fulfill it.

Perfection also means completeness. From Mr. Ye to Chen Shuo, we have seen actor Wang Yibo express his roles more and more freely, his emotions are gradually becoming more accurate, and his performances are becoming more solid. His lack of experience is being filled by his redoubled efforts. In 2023, he used an almost perfect rise. The plot has reached the perfection of his debut on the big screen, and his nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the Golden Rooster Award is the end of another period of progress for him.

When Cheng Er talked about “Mermaid”, he once said, "No matter what happens, Mermaid will reach its destination." I want to say that no matter what, actor Wang Yibo will reach his "Temple of Light and Shadow", and I have no doubt about it!

While writing this article, another good news came. Wang Yibo won the 11th Zhejiang Film Phoenix Award for Outstanding Actor for his role as Chen Shuo in "One and Only".

You see, his time is coming...

[selkies-world]

Sign the petition to demand the creation of a new international law requiring fast-fashion garments to come with a statement of the human cost and environmental harm caused by their creation.

We all know fast fashion is bad for the planet - slave labor, environmental waste, air and water pollution, and unsustainable practices are just a few of the ways they impact our planet, our health and our lives. To date, the fast fashion industry is the 2nd largest consumer of water and is single-handedly responsible for 10% of global carbon emissions (that's more than all international flights and maritime shipping across a year combined). Even the simple act of washing these clothes releases 500,000 tons of microfibers into the ocean each year - that's equal to 50,000 plastic bottles. Fast-fashion is the 3rd leading cause of the climate crises we face, yet is rarely addressed.

Knowing these stats is one thing, and understanding them is important. Being aware of them is somewhat informative. But as long as we keep turning a blind eye to the issue, the stats are only going to get worse, and nothing will change for the better. Ignoring the issue or brushing it under the rug won't help anything. So what if we could see the real-world damage done by each of the garments we buy?

In the same way that cigarette packets have shown the harm their products do to our bodies ("SMOKING KILLS", lung cancer visualizations, etc.), what if fast fashion manufacturers & retailers had to show the harm their products do to our planet?

[Image ID: A type-writer font has been used on a brown craft paper background. The text reads: "32 animals lost their habitat to the field where my crops were planted - 2 of those animals are already endangered species. 2,700 litres of water were used in my production. I was made in a sweatshop enslaving men and women aged 16 - 45, and children aged 6 - 14. I contain 0.22kg of carbon dioxide dye." End ID.]

This is a mock-up of a label / statement for a single T-shirt, with researched statistics and educated estimates for the information I couldn't find a calculated answer for.

Now imagine labels / statements like this for every single piece of clothing: how many toxic chemicals are in those new jeans? How many litres of water did that shirt take to make? How many animals were skinned to make those cute fur-trimmed boots? How many children made that jumper? How many people were forcibly removed from their homes, so production companies could plant crops to grow the materials used in clothes manufacturing? How many families were evicted for no reason other than corporate greed? How many trees were cut down? How many animals were displaced or killed?

Would you really want to buy those items of clothing if the answers to those questions were staring you in the face?

If this information was stated in clear, accessible ways on both the website and the ticket on the actual garment, this would dramatically reduce the number of people buying fast fashion items. It would also reduce the profits being made by fast fashion companies, and could lead to many of them being forced to choose between changing and becoming sustainable, eco-froendly and ethical brands, or shutting down due to being boycotted.

Who would really want to knowingly buy things that are made by slaves, or which cost a family their home, or which contributed to deforestation? Who would continue to buy fast fashion items knowing this is the damage caused by them, when sustainable alternatives are an option?

Whether it's second-hand fashion at affordable prices, or investing more money in sustainable products which were made with high ethical standards and which cost more money due to the fact their price accounts for the time it took a person to make that item... we can say for certain that sustainable shopping is going to become much more popular if people know how important that change is. Sustainable items last much longer than fast-fashion items, which by design are created to self-destruct, as they are made to be worn a few times and then discarded in order to be replaced by the next trend's items - and as trends speed up, these items become weaker and weaker. This then leads to people spending more money in order to keep up with the newest trends, and to keep replacing clothes they throw out after a few washes.

In contrast, buying sustainable items which are designed to last years means people won't have to spend money on new clothes every few weeks, which means they'll ultimately save money in the long term and actually be able to afford those pricier items which will last much, much longer.

Now, despite the amount of harm the fast-fashion industry causes to people and the environment, the last thing we should be doing is getting angry at those who continue to buy them. Being the target of anger doesn't make large populations change their behaviour - even a cursory look through history books will tell us that much. Neither does being the target of resentment or blame.

But guilt? Shame? Those are two of the most powerful emotions to magnify when you want change to happen in waves.

And frankly, if people feel ashamed of buying something, or if buying something makes them feel guilty... they're going to stop buying it.

Those aren't the only emotions that should be felt, though. Because only feeling guilt and shame leads to feeling hopeless, scared, anxious and depressed. And we don't want that. No matter how bad things get... we don't want that.

The only other emotions to provoke are hope and pride.

If there's no hope for the future, how can anyone be expected to imagine a better one?

You wouldn't think it, what with all the climate crises and disasters we experience around the world and the total lack of commitment made by billionaires, multimillion-dollar companies and corporations and politicians.

But it's true. Scientists in Scotland have discovered bacteria which eat plastic and speed up the decomposition of it. ‘Ecocide’ is now punishable by law. Some countries within the EU are already close to meeting their 2030 goals years ahead of schedule! Thanks to scientists and small, individual changes made on a massive scale by ordinary people who are making small adjustments to our everyday choices, we can and are healing most of the ozone layer before 2050. That is something we should all feel incredibly proud of.

So imagine how much we could speed that process up if more people made those changes. Imagine how much sooner we could heal our planet if billions of people made those changes, rather than millions. Imagine how much sooner we could be seeing the effects of a healthier planet if fast fashion companies were forced to choose between going green and transparent, or closing altogether due to a lack of interest from consumers. Imagine the changes we could create if corporations made massive changes in a short amount of time, in order to save their own profits.

Imagine more labels like this, sitting alongside each other on every single piece of fast fashion clothing. A statement like this beneath every item of clothing on fast fashion websites, which transparently states the harm done.

If every single fast-fashion company and store had to display this on their clothing, on their racks, on their websites, and if there were legal punishments for those who tried to evade or lie... fashion would turn a lot greener very quickly. We'd start seeing more and more labels with "I'm made from 6 plastic bottles! I used to be a newspaper! I had 0 pesticides used on me in my production! I only contain natural dye made from berries, beans and sustainably grown flowers. I was made from apple skins and corn! The people who made me get to go home to their families every night, have days off and the adults made £150.35 each in 1 week! The animal who made the wool for me is free-range and well-cared for! I came from a small family farm, and was created with a closed-loop water system!”

That'd be a much better civilisation to shop in, don't you agree?

That is hope for the future.

That is motivation, which can fuel ordinary people to do extraordinary things and create changes they thought were impossible.

If you want to be a part of creating this change, sign the Change.org petition which demands the the creation and implementation of an international law which will require all fast-fashion products to be displayed with a statement which states the harm done to people and the planet by that garment being made & shipped.

[the-alakazam-attraction]

OKAY HEAR ME OUT

So, I have a theory about Undertale & Deltarune...

So... Basically, Deltarune is a prequel to Undertale

NOW BEFORE YOU SCROLL PAST HEAR ME OUT

So, I have no "hard" evidence or proof (Wait no! Don't go!) BUT, it would kind of make sense from how Undertale was even made.

So, yeah, Undertale was made first, but Toby said (through various sources that, to be blunt, I'm too lazy to find) that it was made as a "test to see if one person [with some help with art and stuff] could even make a full game" and he did! He made Undertale!

HOWEVER!!!

It was not his final project. It was, as he said, a test.

And Deltarune is the game he actually wants to make.

But why do I think Undertale is a "sequel" to Deltarune?

Well... The most prominent example (and well known queen killer and sexyman) is Sans.

AND NO THIS ISN'T "Sans is all powerful and all knowing and the lord of Undertale and its fanbase blah blah blah" Like i've occasional seen people say similar crap cause "Oh its THAT god damn overly popular"

But the line in particular I'm referring to is when he says "I gave up trying to go back a long time ago"

Plus the Q & A with Papyrus where Sans very deliberately cuts it short when Papyrus is talking about "where they're from before Snowdin"

And I know every facet of Sans has been discussed to death, but why do I think that line he's referring to Deltarune? Or perhaps more accurately Hometown?

Well... It's a simple line said by Toriel in the Ruins in Undertale.

"It may come as a surprise to you but... I've always wanted to be a teacher! Well... That may not be that surprising..."

AND THAT RIGHT THERE

Is another part of why I think Undertale is a "sequel" or at the very least some kind of spinoff to Deltarune.

Because in Deltarune she IS a teacher.

So... It's been a while since I played Undertale (i'm actually playing it right now which is why I suddenly had the urge to write this all out lol) but I'm certain that if you go through Undertale you can see some parallels to Deltarune.

But I'm calling it right now.

Deltarune is a prequel.

That could also explain why Deltarune (originally) only had one ending. That ending (some-fucking-how) leading to the creation of Undertale and it's world.

Hell, maybe Undertale is after the roaring or whatever... Cause in Deltarune the main bosses and such talk about "reforging the world" and maybe that's because of Kris. Maybe Kris successfully reforged the world in their own image. With their parents (Toriel and Asgore) becoming the rulers of Monsters, and (this one is mostly speculation but-) Kris' hate for humans led to the banishment of Monsterkind, and it kind of line's up strangely well...

And maybe a lot of things don't line up, sure, but Deltarune isn't even fully out yet.

I'm calling it right now. Deltarune is a prequel and Undertale is Kris' reforging of the world through darkness and darkworld fountains or something.

I SWEAR TO GOD IF I'M RIGHT I'M GONNA BE FUCKING ECSTATIC XD

(Also sans is 100% Ness /j)

BUT HEY! THAT'S JUST A THEORY!

A GAME THEORY!!!!

Rest in peace mat pat (i know he's not dead, but in internet terms he might as well be lol)

[ldhluvr]

☆ drunk on you — james x reader

info: gn!reader. can be interpreted as friends to lovers, but there isn't any real trope involved, so you can imagine whatever relationship you want. there's no actual alcohol in here, but firewhisky is mentioned (idk if i needed to bring that up.) also i use parentheses like four times which may be annoying idk.

“i love you.”

your voice rings in james’s ears for hours after your confession. as he walks from class to class, people call out his name, worried about how disoriented he looks. he walks like he’s drunk, and in a way he is – he’s drunk on you. (the second he thinks that, he sees a mental image of you slapping him for how cringy that thought was.)

he looks so drunk that when he enters his potions class (the one where you conveniently sit next to him), slughorn pulls him aside, asking him if he’s had any firewhisky. james simply responds with a dopey smile, and slughorn, unable to detect or smell anything unusual, lets him go back to his seat.

unlike james’s lovestruck self, you remain in your seat, silent and cold. while your words have been playing nonstop in james’s head, he’s never voiced his thoughts on your confession with you. 

“did you drink before coming here?” you ask with a grimace. you realize you tend to be rather mean when you’re hurt.

his smile widens once you speak to him, but he seems to recognize what you’ve asked and “sobers up.”

“what? oh, uh, no. why would i drink before class?” james starts smiling again and moves closer to you. you bite your lip to hide your reaction to his proximity, but james catches it, and his eyes train on your mouth.

“wh-what are you doing? you’re acting like you’re drunk. can you please just open your textbook?” you forget your bashfulness and become exasperated at the way he’s acting.

he seems to remember where he is and cracks open the potion book to the potion you’re meant to make: draught of the living dead.

as you both work on the potion, there are many moments where you catch james unashamedly staring at you. he’s also touching you more than usual, and throughout the process of the potion’s creation, there have been at least two times when you both are close enough to kiss.

you successfully brew the potion, and slughorn brings everyone’s attention to your well-made potion (which brings a scowl to snape’s face, making you quite proud of yourself). after class, james follows behind you like a little puppy.

you drag him to a more secluded part of the floor, and when you stop and look at him, there’s a smirk on his face. “wanted to get me alone, huh?”

“can you not do this?” you plead. james frowns and looks confused. “can you not lead me on? i mean, i told you that i love you and you didn’t say anything, you just walked off, and now you’re being all weird and clingy and whatnot and if you’re doing this to screw with me, you’re much worse than i thought.”

realization hits james like a semi-truck. “oh my god, [y/n], i’m so sorry. i completely forgot to respond, i was just so— so happy when you told me that i forgot to respond and skipped away or whatever. i love you, i really do. been in love with you since third year.” his hand reaches to cup your cheeks and you feel yourself melt at his touch. his thumb rubs your cheek, and he chuckles as he feels them heat up. “god, i’ve been waiting to call you my partner for ages now.”

“you haven’t asked me to be your partner yet, james.”

“oh, right.” he gets down on one knee, and you feel extremely embarrassed even though no one else is remotely near you two. “[y/n] [y/l/n] will you make me the happiest man in the world and be my partner? and go on dates with me and shit?” he holds his hands in front of him as if he’s holding a ring.

you laugh and roll your eyes. you grab the hands he’s holding out to lift him up. he gets up with a groan and laughs too. as he stretches, he looks down at you with a big grin. you cup his cheeks and pull him down to finally bring his lips to yours.

[fullonfandomindulgence]

dimple is a great fucking character and i will fight anyone who says otherwise. specifically i will fight them by making them read this masterpiece client-crashing god-tackle effortpost about dimple

ive deliberately put off watching the telepathy arc episodes so i could finish this. i like tome So Much. you have no idea how much willpower it took. but it is done and its abt dimples like whole story and purpose and life and i think its a real good thing for you to read and enjoy

im so serious about this that I'm gonna capitalize and punctuate. My sorta thesis here is that Dimple's goals of manipulation are an expression of the basic act of choice that Mob Psycho 100 defines as living, but caring for Mob freaks him out because it distracts him from that purpose, and that contradiction and desperation to choose to live through control is tragically what ends him. Dimple is a friend. Strap in, motherfuckers, we're going for a ride.

Dimple's Goals (Dimpoals)

This is kinda an easy one.

I'm gonna be using images from the show and the comics but I'm not talking about anything past season three, episode six, so no worries anime-onlys. I describe all relevant visual info for each image, though there are also extra IDs in the alt text--I try not to repeat information.

Dimple wants to be a god, "the ultimate being in all creation," "the greatest power in the whole world," and "an object of devotion for all humanity." This dovetails with ideas about superiority and idealism in other parts of the comic but this post ain't about that. It's important that he never says what he'd actually do as a god. Like what is the power for? This comes up in his final confrontation with Mob, too.

Dimple claims that Psycho Helmet leads "people onto the right path," but the second Mob interrogates that he admits he has no plan, "no codex of any kind" from the comic. I don't think that's entirely true, though. Clearly Dimple doesn't care about ruling, because he doesn't actually know what he'd do with the power. But he does want to be revered--he wants positive attention!

Dimple's LOL cult is all about people laughing, and in this panel he says he chose that so he could gain a following without violence. Dimple's attempt with the divine tree is the same, he's trying to keep people the same besides their worship of the tree, make them feel happy in togetherness, help them "find peace at heart." I think there is a reading where making people happy is just a means to an end for Dimple. He for sure tries to kill Mob the first time they meet. But he doesn't have any logic for why he's not, like, using his powers to threaten people and demand tribute. He wants to become a god by making people feel good.

All this said--he's not gonna do it by being himself.

Identifying as evil

When Dimple meets Reigen he identifies himself as an evil spirit. Obviously this is sort of a joke. Like the idea that Mob's pet/mascot is actually an ancient malevolent ghost is pretty funny. But it's meaningful for Dimple's character too, so let's talk about what "evil" looks like. First, obviously the possession thing. How good is it that among all the people trying to manipulate Mob, one of them wants to literally control his every move? Second, here's a bunch of bad stuff Dimple did that Mob thinks about right after Teru tries to exorcise him:

Bro! She's like fourteen! (Dimple makes a lecherous comment about Tsubomi in this image.) He threatens Reigen, he tells Mob the body improvement club is a waste of his time, he straight up asks Mob if he can possess him... He's vindictive, pushy, mocking, and transparently manipulative.

Now to be fair lots of Mob Psycho characters are Like That. But there are some other things more specific to Dimple. Third, he tries to possess Ritsu, taking advantage of his fear of Mob. Fourth, again, the attempting-to-kill-Mob thing. Fifth, here's a bit from a recent side story:

My god. Dimple is terrifying in this. If you haven't read it, Uu is a little dog spirit that Reigen's been keeping around as a pet. Dimple notices that it's feeding on Reigen's energy so he gets rid of it. In these panels he waits until Reigen asks him where Uu is before telling him that he ate it. He has all these lines on his face and this expression of like hostile delight. There are creepy effects blobs behind him. He burps! He does a thing he knows will hurt Reigen and then rubs it in his face, acting like he takes pleasure in it. And finally from one of my favorite scenes in season 2:

I love love love this scene, when Mob is asked to exorcise the ghost family and he refuses. It takes the existing tropes in the story and introduces this like moral complexity and thoughtfulness, it communicates a change in stakes... "They won't have to exorcise you if the clients are dead." Again Dimple is smiling maliciously. He tries to manipulate ghost dad into attacking the college assholes, which is the one hand, for the purpose of getting him exorcised by Mob, which is the other hand. Harm in both directions. There is a third hand! We'll get to it.

But I want to summarize this section first: Dimple's default tool for dealing with adversity is manipulation. He, unlike, say, Reigen, is very comfortable looking like the bad guy, and to some extent he believes he is one. He wants to reach godhood by making people feel good, and he's going to do that not through bloodshed or by being a paragon of virtue but by using other people's flaws to control them.

The Living Spirit

Sorry, I want to do some more stuff before I get to the third hand.

I'd like to think I've been helpfully analytical up to this point, though probably not too novel. But I haven't seen anyone talk about this. Dimple is the liveliest dead guy in the comic, by a wide margin. He has multiple genuine relationships with people, he gets embarrassed, he gets happy, he fears things, he fully laughs. Sure in-canon this might be a proximity thing but in a narrative context I think it's significant that he's so much more of a character than other spirits. Here, in essentially his introduction as a significant character, he says, "I don't want to spend the rest of my life as a ghost!" There's also a great pun he makes in the Dark Horse translation when Reigen questions the existence of urban legend spirits--"Look, pal, just because you're a fake, don't disrespect the lived experience of the dead!" He thinks about living a lot.

Dimple comes back from apparent evaporation more than once, first when Mob exorcises him at the LOL meeting, second when Teru exorcises him in their first encounter. He really really wants to live.

Then there's the brief conversation between him and Reigen about the woman being stalked by what appears to be a spirit, but ends up being a neighbor astral-projecting himself. In this panel Dimple denies that spirits get horny. "It's not like we can do anything about it." He doesn't even think about like romantic love. So most importantly, canon aroace Dimple. But also Dimple believes that being a ghost reduces your existence. It's not even a possibility to do certain things, whether you want to or not. There's a tension here, Dimple craves life but knows that as-is he can't have it.

And then there's this six-page omake at the end of volume five. Please please read it if you can, it's not in the anime and it's such a good little story. When Dimple is almost exorcised by Teru, he only just manages to pull together an ant-sized form, and is rescued from being eaten by a pig ghost by a tiny human spirit called Stubble. The above image is an abandoned house in the woods, with Stubble, off-screen, monologuing, "I simply don't want to perish. I don't hold any grudge against this world. Neither do I have any dreams. Years have passed, without a clear goal." Stubble lives an extremely reduced existence, figuratively and literally. He rides around on the back of the ghost of flea, i.e., he is dependent on the echo of a thing that needs to latch onto something else to exist. He has no agency at all.

It's disconcerting, how Dimple starts at Stubble's size and slowly grows--or, reframed, Stubble slowly shrinks. Here Dimple accuses Stubble, "You died, even before your death. But I on the other hand..." Stubble gets angry. "You're dead too!" Again you should read the story, the way it concludes really blows me away.

Remember in the first episode of season three the S&S crew help the bald guy out of his funk, and at one point he says, "Am I doomed to just repeat these meaningless days until my death?" And then, soon after, "Wait, is my life already over?"

This is about the desperation of agency. Because like, Stubble is right. Dimple has been dead for a long time. His goal is ridiculous. His existence is scraps, yet he's clinging to them with everything he has. What's the point? Lay down alone among the insects, shrink and fade.

Dimple doesn't have a counterargument to Stubble. He doesn't justify "why." But the last sentence he says in the omake is, "I want to stay alive." Dimple, and by extension this omake, and if I may be so bold all of Mob Psycho 100, identifies agency with life. It's not even that life is about making choices, it's that life is literally the act of choosing. You have to choose to live. And Dimple does.

He likes control. He likes choice. He may not be alive but he chooses to live every day. Why? Because he has a purpose: he's going to become a god. And he's going to take Mob there with him.

The Third Hand

Are you good? You're like 1500 words in, feel free to take a break, drink some water.

Maybe you're starting to sense where this is heading. On the third hand, Dimple manipulates ghost dad to help Mob. He attempts to take away both of their autonomy in order to ease Mob's obvious distress. Let's talk about Dimple's evolving relationship with Mob.

I say this a third time, Dimple tries to kill Mob when they meet. Then, despite a positive spin on his initial pitch to Mob, he's pretty transparently evil about it.

These frames of the show are from that introduction, the first with Dimple surrounded in stars and bright colors saying "Let's shoot for the top of the world together," the second with Dimple thinking, face lit from below and body language full of menace, "I'll just wait for my chance to possess him." To be fair again, lots of Mob Psycho characters are Like That. Compare this to the first episode of season two: when Mob tells Dimple the story about Emi, Dimple, excited, assures him that they should keep sticking together so Dimple can help him out with these things. The animators even use the same image of Dimple with the stars and colors:

"Looks like you'll always need an advisor like me!" But this time he doesn't have the sinister turn he did when they first met. This is how Dimple keeps acting throughout season two. He helps Mob, apparently so that Mob trusts him so that in turn Mob can help him reach godhood. But he goes so far above and beyond without any malice: he keeps Banshomaru safe, he possesses one of the high school kids bullying Mob, he eats the curse off Reigen's back, he tries to defend Mob against fucking Toichiro.

Here's a great couple panels: after Dimple explains the deal with urban legends becoming real, he reiterates that he wants to be a god. Then Mob asks Dimple to "make sure [Banshomaru] won't get hurt," and little surprise lines come off Dimple. He agrees but says, "You gotta do me a favor sometime too." Dimple is a little struck by Mob's trust, but maybe more importantly this is the first time in a while, and I think the last time in season two, that Dimple suggests Mob do something for him. It only comes after he reiterates exactly what his purpose is. Dimple's priorities are a little unstable.

Yeah this is just a full comic page from the encounter with Mogami but it's meaningful as shit. Dimple has just suggested taking over Mob's body to protect it. The first panel is Dimple looking away and down, deflated, ashamed. A few sweat drops come down his face. He says, "but something like that..." And to his surprise (action lines, closeup, wide eyes) Mob agrees. Dimple puts on an evil affect when he responds: a horizontally squashed panel shows his backlit face. He smiles unpleasantly and laughs a little, "Kuku..." But his heart clearly isn't in it! His eyebrows are worried, not hostile. There's no pleasure in his smile. He's covered in sweatdrops, eyes wide. When Mob assures Reigen, "It'll be okay," there's another panel of Dimple where the remnants of that affect slide off him. The backlighting is still present but not as severe, the echo of that smile is on his cheek. He's openly worried and covered in sweatdrops. Mob's speech bubble covers a large portion of his face.

Points about this. First, by now Dimple has given up on possessing Mob. This thing that seemed like the main path to his goal is not an option. Second, while both Dimple and Reigen believe that this is a bad idea for Mob, Mob disagrees. Dimple identifies as evil. Reigen identifies him as evil. Mob no longer does. This is classic Shigeo Kageyama behavior, being generous to people even when no one including themselves thinks they deserve it. And the worst part for Dimple is he's starting to agree with Mob. When the option he'd dropped is handed to him on a silver platter, he finds he doesn't want to take advantage of this kid that way. He's a different person than he was.

I don't even know how relevant this is but. Look how much fucking fun Dimple has when he's possessing Mob to protect him. He's doing all these flips and kicks. His smile when he's fighting Mogami!Asagiri is so funny. He does the wildest mid-air combo I ever did see when he attacks the Claw guy as Mob.

Mob becomes such a top priority for Dimple that in the first episode of season three he realizes he forgot that he wanted to become a god. Not only that, but when he comes to Mob to convince him to lead the cult together he's immediately distracted by Mob and what's going on in his life. Mob has to prompt him for him to remember that he's there about the cult.

All this is why Mob's mistrust of Dimple in this conversation is so tragic. Dimple has helped Mob so much, and been so much of a genuine friend, because he knew that Mob trusted him. Where did it go? What happened? Mob's parting words to him are, "Why don't you give your schemes a rest already?" What schemes?? This is the first he's had in months. The translation in the comic, though, is so much more brutal:

"Why don't you stop doing bad things?"

Dimple is

Dimple is terrified of Mob. When Mob wonders if Dimple is scared of him, he's right, of course he is. He has lots of reasons. Mob almost evaporates Dimple when they first meet, threatens him multiple times. Dimple saw him at 100% rage, Mob's first on-screen. He watched Mob hit ???% without being knocked unconscious. This is all especially threatening given Dimple's drive to live. He's terrified when Ritsu tries to fight Mob, he's terrified when Mob asks him if he had anything to do with Ritsu's kidnapping, he's terrified when he thinks Reigen is about to tell Mob that they don't know what happened to his family. But I also read his fear as a symbol of how important Mob is. Dimple attached himself to Mob as the way to achieve his goal. Dimple helps Mob out in so many ways, putting off his goal, so that eventually they can fulfill his purpose together. Then he starts caring about this kid so much that he forgets his purpose! Of course Dimple fears Mob, because their relationship threatens what drives him to live. As much as Dimple is a manipulator, Mob is the one who ultimately has power over him.

Dimple so easily reverts to an evil persona once he leaves Mob because without Mob that's all he can be. If he can't get to the top with Mob, then he has to do it the old way, by using people's flaws to manipulate them. He's able use the broccoli to become a physical presence and get around the "amazing power" problem--though the broccoli's presence and power are still kinda Mob's! But why does he need to become a god at all? Because that's all he is. If he doesn't have Mob and he doesn't have his purpose, then he has nothing.

"Don't go casually denying the thing I've been wanting so badly!" Dimple gets so angry when Mob tells him he's being fake because first, Mob is denying Dimple's manipulative tendencies, which are really important to Dimple right here because he feels his identity is so precarious. And because second, Mob is denying Dimple's purpose. Dimple is in equal danger from Mob's physical attacks and Mob's denial of what he wants. What he wants, what he chooses, is what living is. Dimple doesn't want to die.

Here's a lot of a comic page again, from the final confrontation. Dimple tells Mob that he's just been using him the whole time they've known each other. Mob says, "I'm sad... Does that mean it's time to say goodbye to Dimple?" He steps towards Dimple, who screams in fear and anticipation. I think this is basically the worst thing ever, because god, Dimple is so afraid. Mob is justified in what he's doing but Dimple's desperation is what stands out to me, how hard he's tried to cling to agency and life and how sincerely he believes Mob is about to take it all away from him anyway, to disappear forever and ever.

And then Dimple insults Mob's shirt.

Dimple insults Mob's shirt

Fucking kills me. These are two frames from episode six, Dimple sees how much Mob suddenly trusts him and his reaction is anger, "You okay with leaving me like this?" His eyes are wide, brow down in anger. And then what he says next, "I'm... a dangerous evil spirit!" Here the anger is present but has softened with worry on his brow. The lines by his nose and his pouty lower lip make him look scared and sad. This fight has made it important to Dimple's identity that Mob try to stop him, because he's evil, and Mob stops evil spirits.

Panels from the comic where Mob tells Dimple, "You weren't doing bad things. You were just doing what you wanted to do. Together with me. You trusted me before I trusted you, Dimple. Thank you." Mob doesn't think Dimple is evil, but he identifies how important Dimple acting on his wants is, and he tells him that he still values their relationship. He denies that he has to hurt dimple but affirms his power to choose.

I maybe could've skipped a lot of BS if I put this page further up but I wanted this to get felt, what Dimple's admitting to himself here. It's another section of a page. Panel one, a white splotch in darkness with Dimple's thoughts, "It felt like my ambitions would fade away. Did spending time with unselfish Shigeo cause even me to lose sight of my goals?" Panel two, Dimple is the white splotch. He's scared. "...eh? Wait, that's a problem...!! I'll lose my reason for existing!" So Dimple tells Mob, angry, "No, not yet... I'm not done yet! Even now... I've still got... plenty of things I want to do! And ambitions!" Mob agrees, with that tired, frank look. "I'll hear you out for real. As your friend." Accepting Mob's friendship like this is terrifying, because it means what it always has, forgetting about this purpose. What if Mob stops trusting him again? If he really, consciously abandons his purpose, will he still have agency? He wanted a friend, always wanted a friend. Will it be enough? Will he disappear?

Dimple takes Mob's hand anyway. This was such an amazing shot, I've reproduced its animated glory here, Mob and Dimple reach towards each other, Mob weakly, so Dimple closes the gap and grabs him. The hand grasp of all time. I'm not gonna talk about how this fits into all the other Mob Psycho hand symbolism, that's another 4000-word megapost.

It's worth it. I'm convinced that by involving yourself in a network of people and creating some sense of obligation to others you can actually give yourself an even deeper kind of agency than you could achieve alone. And this is awful, terrifying. Because it involves giving yourself up a little bit. You have to give up some control. Dimple wants to be a god, to have ultimate power and control, so much of him is his manipulation, but he has to give that up for this. Goals that may have guided you for a long time can become irrelevant--and then who are you? If you've defined your life by something for years, and at the end of the decade you realize you don't fit your definition anymore, where do you go? Dimple tells Mob, "Let's go home." But...

Panels from the comic, where Dimple carries a sleeping Mob and thinks, "I said 'let's go home,' but I don't really have any place to 'go home' to... And I don't have anything to aim for from here... I wonder what I should do now." That Dimple is allowing himself to think this is really powerful. I don't think this has to be a sad moment. Like obviously Mob thinks that Dimple's home is his house. He just asked him to stay away until he reverts to his smaller form, as in, he otherwise would've expected Dimple to stay with him. I appreciate the larger point that now Dimple feels unmoored, and deciding on a new purpose is existential. But I think Mob also has a larger point that he believes he can help moor Dimple. I think allowing yourself to wonder where to go next is so important. Dimple is where Mob was a few months back when he decided he wanted to join the body improvement club! He has a future, even if he can't see it very well.

Or, um.

I keep fucking crying while I'm writing this. I love the translation in the comic here. Dimple kneels before a prone Mob and, finger touching his forehead, says, "Listen well... I'm giving you orders for the first and last time. First, wake up. Stand up, Shigeo." Mob is still for a moment and then says, "...it's no use. I can't put any strength into my legs. I can't move my arms either." Dimple is very serious now as he relays, "Your body may complain, but still... stand up. Even if you cannot stand... you must stand." God damn it, god fucking dammit.

Sometimes it's not so easy to change. Your actions have consequences. Your history follows you. Dimple's desperate attempt to keep his old wants comes back to kill his new ones.

Dimple's final act is the same thing he always does, he manipulates Mob to protect him. And it is good and kind. Suddenly his reason for existence is paradoxical: he's going to have to die to fulfill it. Who exists to die? But that's not what it is. Because he's making a choice. He denies death, he says, no, you can swallow me whole, you can annihilate me, but even then you can't take my agency away from me. And I will use this final choice to protect someone I love.

Dimple was a friend.

[mistyfoxxy]

Okay, I am a new TOH fan, just marathon watched everything. I had the pleasure of pretty much knowing all the characters and plot points from mutuals posting about it LONG before I saw the show. But now that I've finished it, I have a question for a more seasoned fan---

Are we sure that Hunter is a grimwalker of Caleb? That seems to be the fandom consensus, but it's never actually said in the show. What if Hunter is a grinwalker of Caleb's SON?

*he is refered to as Belos' nephew. Sure, this can be explained other ways, but...

*In hollow mind, in the image of Caleb being lead away by the witch, the witch looks like she could be pregnant

*in the final fight of king's tide, Belos reveals his human face when approaching Hunter, and calls him Hunter. He says "I was only trying to help you" and only yells the name Caleb when he sees Flap.

*Hunter has witch ears, not human ears. If he was a grimwalker of a human, wouldn't he maybe have human ears? I don't know how grimwalkers work

What if after killing Caleb, Philip somehow got ahold of his son, the first Hunter? The kid would be half a witch, making him a lot more worthless/loathsome/disposable to Philip/Belos. What if he really is, and always has been, his nephew???

IDK. Am I a noob missing some key detail that confirms it as Caleb? Or is this a possibility?? TEACH ME 😆

Ok. So I spent several hours researching this lmao. I also got on a few rabbit trails so I will be taking several rabbit trails with this one.

SPOILERS AHEAD To start, let’s figure out what a Grimwalker is shall we?

I’ve searched high and low through the internet for myths and such, trying to find some kind of basis for this being but it seems to be consequently made up. Atleast In whole, but it seems to be derived of many different things. I searched up grim in mythology and found something called “Grim Church” also called the “black dog”. Which is funny to me considering Hunter’s new love of wolves. I think it’s a lot considering Belos uses these Grimwalkers to “pure” the world.

There is also something called “Shadow Walkers” which was a book LITERALLY WRITTEN BY ONE OF THE GRIMM BROTHERS. The literal two who went about collecting stories from town to town. So I dug into that a little bit, unfortunately you have to pay for the book or something so I was not able to gather much, however. There is a game that features them, but I don’t want to go into that. Not really.

Also the American Indian term for “Shadow Walker” literally means “someone that walks in two worlds”

He was also made of something called “Ortet” which in botanist terms literally means, “THE ORIGINAL SINGLE PARENT PLANT FROM WHICH A CLONE IS ULTIMATELY DERIVED”. Which definitely confirms that is was made by asexual reproduction of sorts. We’ll get back to that.

Also, Selkie scales. My bet would be Philip used those, well anyone who was trying to make a Grimwalker, would use that to shape the creation into what it wanted, as Selkies have the power to shed their skin and transform into humans. That could also explain some of the sensitivity to Hunter’s hand of that indeed had anything to do with his outer appearance.

The palistrom had “keratin” listed next to it. That has to do with hair obviously. Which could explain why his grew so long? Maybe his use of magic, (like when Belos took over him) it grew out.

Then we have the stonesleeper lungs. I really couldn’t find much of anything on that aside of what the owl house gave us. They’re dinosaur like creatures in which they turn to stone when they sleep. They’re aggressive in nature but are pretty sturdy and tough creatures I suppose. Which would help in keeping the boy alive during that toughly enduring reading and missions.

Then we have the galderstone. The owl house explains it as an old relic that has the magical ability to boost one’s power. Also listed as “heart.

So onto the question at hand. Given the information of these two, I think it’s safe to say it could go either way. Giving the information I’m about to give you, I can tell you why that probably not the case.

Your first fact and second fact. While this could be soooo true, I don’t think Belos was able to get his hands on that baby. When he murders his brother, they’re alone, and there’s fire around them. The next memory, it’s just her, a clearer pic and she is noticeably less round. So there IS a chance he did in fact come for his nephew. That was his family. Forget the witch, his brother is gone but his legacy will continue sort of thing. Oh I know. I’ll make my own nephew.

Your third fact. I can also see this. But it’s as I said, considering the long line of clawthornes we have now, and they are no doubt the descendants of the two. That baby survived. But since this, I’m even more convinced now that Belos generally beloved this to be his nephew. I’m a sick sort of way ofc. Maybe his, “I was only trying to help you” came from the place of, oh I delivered you from your witch mother and betraying father. After all he says “wild magic” did this to OUR FAMILY. He’s referring to both of them.

Your last point, I think, since Belos found a way to shift his own ears, he could have easily used the selkie scales or whatever else to form this little half witch the way he wanted. While “ortet” really stands out to me, the fact that Hunter is considered half a which when he’s literally made of magic kind of adds to this even more. His genetics were made by Caleb I believe. But the magic in him, that he was made of, makes him “half a witch”. He might not be one genetically, shoot he’s not even human. He’s straight up made of magic and other stuff.

So nah, I don’t think he’s made of Caleb’s son. I think he was made in place of him. Philip couldn’t convince his brother, so why control his nephews life? They’re family after all.

[barilleon]

Building Dungeons that Tell Stories

One thing I've been hired to do a lot lately is to write a dungeon that's meant to fit into a larger adventure/product. For example, I wrote the Ivory Tower for Sarah Morris's The City Lost to Dream. I'm writing another one now, for [redacted], and I thought it'd be cool to talk through my process as I build the outline.

You can find a Notion template for my dungeon outline here! But this blog post will talk through it.

First, a disclaimer: This isn't the definitive way to make a dungeon! In fact, not all dungeons need to tell stories in this way. But the vast majority of mine do, because they're attached to one-shots, and I like the narrative completeness this style of dungeon creation affords. There's a narrative throughline to this kind of dungeon, where each room serves a purpose and allows the players to piece the story together. At the climax, the characters can use this information to make an informed decision about how to proceed.

This style is heavily inspired by the environmental storytelling found in games I've enjoyed like Bioshock and Pokemon. Every bit of the environment, down to the smallest aesthetic choice, links back to the main idea in some way. When you put all the pieces together, the image becomes clear.

So let's dive into it:

The Dungeon Thesis

The Dungeon Thesis is the story told by traversing the dungeon. What happened here? What will the party learn from each of these rooms? Every room in the dungeon should be a supporting argument for this thesis.

If you've read my adventure The Workshop Watches (get it here for free!), then you'll recognize the strong thesis there: S.A.M. is a sentient workshop who accidentally killed its creators. Every room inside S.A.M. supports this thesis, by providing more insight into Illumar's research and S.A.M.'s actions since its creation.

The Dungeon Background section can help you with this thesis. Who lives in this dungeon now? Why was it originally created? What conflict is created by the disparity in the answer between those two questions?

While your final draft probably won't have a section labeled "Dungeon Thesis," the entire thing should have echoes of what you put here in your outline throughout.

The Dungeon Gimmick

Not every dungeon needs a gimmick, but it is a great way to make this encounter stand out. Maybe the corridors shift, or the characters are running on a timer. Maybe your dungeon is sentient and very, very curious. When coming up with a dungeon gimmick, also consider the other overarching features of the dungeon. How are the halls lit (and who made it that way)? Are there doors? Do they lock?

When adding a gimmick to your dungeon, make sure you introduce it right away. I'll cover this more in the entryway section, but it's a good idea to establish the gimmick as soon as possible, and keep reinforcing it, so it sticks in the GM's mind (and therefore their players' minds). Here's the gimmick from The Workshop Watches:

Individual Rooms: Purpose, Challenge, and Reward

The meat of a dungeon is, of course, its rooms. I have a three-pronged approach to coming up with the rooms: purpose, challenge, and reward.

Purpose

Why is this room important to the overall dungeon? What can the characters learn from traversing this room that will lead them closer to the thesis? Does it establish the ruthlessness of the villain, betray a secret weakness of your enemy, or provide more context for what's going on here?

You don't always have to come up with the purpose first. Sometimes you look at your dungeon layout and say, "I need more combat." So build your combat encounter, and then retroactively determine why that's necessary to the story.

That's what I did for The Workshop Watches. I added the greenhouse fight because the dungeon needed more combat. I asked myself, "what kinds of rooms would exist in a wizard's laboratory?" and settled on a greenhouse full of magical plants. Later on, I came up with the temperature control mechanic, where S.A.M. would counter cold damage with fire damage and fire damage with cold damage. A burnt section of the greenhouse suggests that S.A.M. has incinerated something-or someone-before.

Challenge

What are the characters meant to do in this room? This one is the most straightforward, but writing it out can help you keep track of the balance between different types of challenges. Combat, exploration, social, trap diffusion, puzzle solving, etc.

Reward

What do the characters get for completing the challenge in this room? Sometimes the reward is just "passage to the next room." Sometimes it's as explicit as "treasure!" But think outside the box for things your players would appreciate inside a dungeon: new tools, the opportunity for a rest, more lore, a role play opportunity.

There can be multiple Purposes, Challenges, or Rewards in one room, but try not to overdo it! Conversely, you can cheat a little bit and have them overlap or omit one ("The purpose of this room is simply to be a place for the characters to rest -- a reward! The challenge is in whether they'll recognize it or not")

Examples

The template has more questions for special room types. I won't go through all of them, but I do want to share some examples from my outline for The City Lost To Dream. Here's the entryway example:

Later on, I realized that there wasn't enough in the entryway. The final draft has a statue of the tower's founder and clues to suggest you should rub the bottom of her robe, which grants you a boon on a check. A fun reward for a History challenge.

Another example, one of the Laboratory floors:

You can see there's multiple challenges here, but no concrete reward yet. In the final draft, the aboleth can help you in a later encounter, but it also grants you three "knowledge" wishes (basically, three castings of legend lore).

The Climax

The climax of the dungeon - the final confrontation. Most dungeon delving games consider some kind of confrontation to be a great cap to the adventure. Combat is especially popular here. Give your characters something to fight!

But almost as important as the fight is the choice. A question I am constantly asking myself is, "The Characters learned all that information you gave them; now what are they going to do about it?" This is a roleplaying game, after all! When the characters learn the full truth of the dungeon and uncover its thesis, it may change their minds about how to proceed. Maybe they must choose between two potential adversaries, or choose whether or not to fight, or choose whether or not to use lethal force.

And that's the outline! I hope it's helpful to folks who are interested in creating this style of dungeon. Definitely pick up a copy of The City Lost to Dream if you haven't already; it's a fun 5e adventure! And let me know what you think of this method.

[k-dokja]

synopsis: someone dies during your mission, that's never easy.

timeline: first year, before star vessel.

characters feature: geto suguru, gojo satoru.

relationship: classmates, friends.

notes: probably ooc as hell since i'm trying to narrow them down. originally written for gojo but then 75% in i realized gojo was an asshole so suguru has to lead the convo.

— you feel him before you hear him and you know that won't happen unless he wants you to see his approach. even then, you don't bother to acknowledge him and he gives no complaint when he sits down beside you. next to him, you once again feel the distance between you and the world.

it's strange, and alienating, but you can't stop it from impeding your thoughts and clouding your mind.

"you were nowhere to be found, had to search for you," suguru's easy words become once with the breeze when they enter your ears. it ignites a single cinder of irritation in you but the fire fizzles and then dies.

"i wanted to be alone," you say with pointed indignation. you hear him laugh. it's annoying and pathetic how he gets to you simply by doing no more than breathing, but maybe you are at fault for leaving your walls penetrable. then again, he was the one who came all the way to this rooftop to seek you out when you wanted to hide.

maybe you're justified in your annoyance.

"sorry for ruining your fun," he says, "but you're upset and i don't think you should be alone when you're sad."

you acknowledge him now. your glare is met with a single glance from him. his smile is resigned. it's not a declaration of victory, it has no reason to grate you further. but the reality is contradictory.

"...you shouldn't worry," you muster out your concede of defeat anyway, it's unreasonable to get mad at him, "i just need a moment then i'll be back on my feet."

"take all the time you need," he says, "all of us have to get used to death at some point, whether it's a civilian or somebody we know. it's unavoidable."

you flinch at the accuracy of his words. deep down, he makes sense, you know he does. no one smart would approach being a sorcerer without a healthy dose of pragmatism. but it sits ill in your stomach, the fire from before heats up again to boil your organs with an unfamiliar sickness.

"...no."

"no?"

you glare at him again. it's incredible how your eyes don't burn when you talk because your body is steaming from all of the emotions you're withholding. "no." you say. "the moment i become apathetic to death is the moment i stopped trying. i don't... i don't want to..."

it sounds silly. stupid. the rebellion of someone sinking and unwilling to admit they can't swim. this is why yaga-sensei kept telling you to temper your mind because getting emotional is no good. but you can't shut down the images of lifeless eyes staring back at you. memories of familiar faces turning indistinguishable replay in your head in a broken reel.

an endless loop without escape and maybe a hell of your own creation.

you swallow and turn away. you aren't going to have this conversation with him, not without coming out of it broken into dust when you're already fragmented.

"...hey," suguru's hand lands on your shoulder and your body turn rigid to stop pushing him away. "i'm not telling you to stop caring, i know you can't." he's trying to find the words to use. you know it because his breath hitches. "it's a part of our line of work, it's fine to grieve and you should grieve... but you have to be quick at picking yourself up since there are others to save too."

suguru breathes in, then out. "there are people we can yet save, we can't spend all of that time worrying about our mistakes and regrets."

"you make it sound easy."

"it isn't, but it has to be," you hear it, the resignation in his voice. "sometimes, we have to pick our battle and do whatever we can. we aren't invincible, nobody is."

"you're hurting satoru's feelings," you point out, unable to resist the opportunity to quip. "he'd argue fervently that he's as close to perfection as one can be."

but suguru only smiles, "i believe if i did, he'd have something to say about it," then, he turns his head back, his voice raised, "wouldn't you agree, satoru?"

to your surprise, an unexpected newcomer pops out from the wall behind the two of you. a mess of white hair, black glasses, and a grin that lacks the normal lustre. "oi, don't sell me out," despite what he said, satoru voluntarily steps towards you from his hiding place.

had it not for suguru's revelation, you don't think you would've noticed him. somehow, that makes you tired. "why in the world are you hiding?" you ask. "do you know how weird that is?"

satoru only shrugs when he reached you. "thought it was better to leave suguru to talk to you, i don't even know where to begin with this." it's weird to hear satoru admitting weakness, but you don't comment on it. he scratches the back of his neck, awkward out of nowhere. "it's not that i don't care enough to make an effort, it's that..."

"you might say something that triggers the wrong nerve?" you drawl. "like you did before?"

you hear suguru chuckles, but satoru only grins, "spot on," he says, "we do worry about you, you know, but some of us don't have the talent to deal with fragility like others." he nudges you with his foot.

you snort, momentarily distracted by his attitude, "asshat," you elbow back at his leg, "at least you're good at making me mad at something else."

"hey~ it's a talent," then he plops down behind the two of you, "better for you to be mad at something inconsequential~"

"well, we can't deny that he's uniquely equipped in pissing people off," suguru chimes in airily, you can't help but snickering at his comment.

"you guys, honestly..." surprisingly, you find yourself smiling. but then, a single thought touches you and steals that smile away. "...wait, i'm skipping class... and the two of you are here... oh shit."

you hear him before you feel him.

by skipping class, you'd sooner or later face the consequence of a pissed yaga-sensei and you had expected later rather than sooner. but apparently, with three fourth of the class missing, your teacher had no choice but to take the matter into his own hands.

you're already shivering by the time you turn back and meet his eyes. nothing but pure death.

"you fools."

the punches land down on the three of your heads too fast to react. briefly, your life, you accumulated past mistakes, your will to live, all of them flash in front of your eyes at once.

"ouch!"

"ack!"

"mercy!"

although, if there's any comfort to gain from this, at least his anger will be split three ways.

[weirdmageddon]

If you know / have thought about it already, what's your god tier aspect for SBURB? If you dont, what would you say it'd be?

ive taken multiple tests over the years and never really found one that stuck. i think the one that i sort of solidified in the past was mage of space since i bought a space blanket and keychain. i got space when i did that official quiz for the first time but i’d like to take it again now. i feel both drawn to light and space now that i think about it as aspects. if i was light idk what class i’d be though. i relate to seer though, “one who knows aspect or knows through aspect”; the aspect’s analytic mouthpiece

i feel like im like the spitting image of the official light description

“Those bound to the aspect of Light are the universe's knowledge-seekers. They are, above all, driven to learn and understand. They are great alchemists, able to take multiple sources of information and synthesize them into something useful. They are scholars and researchers, absolutely dedicated to knowledge for knowledge's sake. They are the ultimate students, and although that might conjure up the image of people sitting around peacefully waiting for knowledge to be brought to them, that couldn't be further from the truth. The Light-bound will go after knowledge with a fierce intensity that others may find distasteful. They aren't overly concerned with laws or norms, either. They often take rules as simple suggestions, instead searching for loopholes or work-arounds. At their best, the Light-bound are resourceful and driven. At their worst they can be fussy, pedantic, and insensitive.”

but the non-canon descriptions of the aspects themselves i find myself drawn to light and space. not fully; i cant see myself fully in any of the aspects but these come pretty close.

“Light deals in exploration, knowledge, luck and relevance. It is the electron-microscope prying secrets from any crevice it can find just as much as it is the spotlight drawing attention to that which cannot physically be ignored. The path of this Aspect is well lit and certain. “Luck” here is the state of being consistently lucky or consistently unlucky. Light introduces certainty even in the places where chance should govern. When led astray the hunger for knowledge or relevance can quickly turn to unhealthy obsession. The idea that everything is meaningful, everything makes sense, can lead to crisis when the Light-bound finds no satisfying explanation behind their symbols. They may be entirely unable to deal with uncertainties, or the hunger for significance in the limelight might burn out their pupils. Curiosity may kill them like many a cat, or watering eyes which cannot close for even a second become their constant curse. At best though the light is a source of answers and a path towards genuine meaning.

Space is breadth, diversity, creation and creativity, birth, motherhood and preservation, but also loneliness and isolation amidst the vast cosmos. It can go anywhere because it already is everywhere, and there is a tendency to get distracted or sidetracked by the sheer number of options at its disposal, but the journey is usually more important than the goal to them anyway. The canvas is literally endless; go ahead and draw something. Space has a penchant for lateral moves, for the random and unexpected, all the fascinating points of interest which dot its habitual all-the-way-zoomed-out bird’s eye perspective. At their worst, the Space-bound are unfocused and ineffectual, abandoning projects as soon as the next thing catches their eye. Their often strange or hyper-specific interests can make it difficult for them to relate to people, only deepening the Space-bound’s characteristic isolation. At best though, the wide focus which their Aspect affords leads them to become brilliant multitaskers and masters of navigating the outside of the metaphorical box.

(https://ouroborista.neocities.org/articles/Treatise_on_Classpecting.pdf)

i think the top 3 aspects (from most to least) for me are

light

space

mind

edit: just realized i was ordering their relevance fuck. this is an extremely important revelation to me because im baked rn. is that lightcore of me did i just prove it

[the-darklings]

I don’t care. No one looks at you like you’re wrong. Like you shouldn’t be here with me. You were the first—the first I saw made, the first I said ‘hello’ to, the first one I loved. You’ve always been mine, and you belong here, with me.

I fcking screamed into my pillow. Ugh. This is sooooo soft and happy. Cori got to be celebrated like the other dreams and nightmares, even if it’s only Wanderer who does so.

But surely Dream knows how close Cori and Wanderer are? Why was it Merv who he ordered to escort Wanderer and not Corinthian? In a way that’s kinda telling how Dream views Cori even if he says that said nightmare is his masterpiece. Corinthian’s creation was the first Wanderer saw and she the next one Cori saw the first time he opened his eyes. I feel sad for Cori. No one likes him except Wanderer. So much brainrot for this two I cannot.

Wonder what the others think that the nightmare no one likes gets to escort the Wanderer and be her first dance for Dreamfall. Hihi. And headcanon that Wanderer taught him how to dance is finally tibyim canon!! Cori gets to flaunt his status as her fave. Bleh to all of you he said. Merv must’ve been so annoyed.

Wanderer would always celebrate Corinthian. No matter what.

As for Dream. It’s complicated. I think, in part, he does and he doesn’t. He expected it, maybe even anticipated, them being close (if you really believe he made Corinthian in Wanderer’s image; if anything, for Corinthian, the thought of how much and what parts is arguably the most haunting part), but their dynamic makes Dream… not unease, per say, and he’s not really jealous in a romantic sense but he is… unnerved by it. In a sense that when Wanderer is there… Corinthian feels a lot more human than any nightmare should. I’ve hinted at it in the past but I think Dream has difficulty comprehending the sheer depth of how deep that bond goes. Envies it, even. Corinthian are Wanderer are like glue—they never argue, the always have fun, Wanderer is always smiling when Corinthian is around, always seeks out the nightmare first, relying on him first and foremost.

Corinthian is… Corinthian. He doesn’t care about others not liking him. He acts the same as always. He’s a nightmare, it’s his nature. There’s no way anyone else would have lead her to that celebration—to the biggest night in the Dreaming that only happens every 500 years—except him. Dream himself would have had to show up and stop him personally.